


Letter to a G.I.

by DyrneKeeper



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-19
Updated: 2013-03-02
Packaged: 2017-11-29 20:56:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 59,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/691354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DyrneKeeper/pseuds/DyrneKeeper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cast opposite the successful actor and performer Blaine Anderson as a romantic lead in a historic drama Kurt, a relative newcomer to the screen, has to learn to navigate his relationship with his character – and with his co-star.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I came across the original Letter to a G.I. one day at work about a year and a half ago, and I cried right there at my desk (if I ever need to make a quantity vs. quality argument, with regards to writing and word count - that letter is 300 words. Just. Wow.) Because I am a fangirl, the idea of ficcing the story instantly came to mind, but right on the heels of that idea was the thought that just doing a WWII AU wasn't quite what I wanted to do. These, after all, are real people; an AU based on this real story just wouldn't be enough. And so the idea of Kurt and Blaine co-starring in a movie version of the story was born.
> 
> I feel like a story like this needs a big author's note; there are certainly enough disclaimers that need to be made. Brian Keith and his G.I. Dave were real people; their story here, as told in the fictional novel and in the movie, is not. It's based on the original letter, of course, but I made up a lot. Since, as far as I could tell - and I did do research - no one really knows who Dave and Brian actually were (there are conjectures, and guesses, but no consensus), I did take a lot of liberties. None were at odds either with the real history of World War II, or the spirit of the letter. This whole fic is a labor of love, and it's meant as a tribute of love and respect to these two men.
> 
> This is far and away the biggest story I've ever written, and I could not have done it without my amazing team of betas and cheerleaders - kaelri, who encouraged the idea from the day I had it, put up with me making him read draft after draft, put his massive geekbase of knowledge to use when I needed a WWII-picker (any remaining errors and inconsistencies are totally my own; I am a history geek too but WWII is not in my wheelhouse) and made that gorgeous gorgeous poster; mtonbury who miraculously didn't laugh at me when he found the open gdoc on my computer, and whose knack for character development helped immensely with the early parts of the story; and wordplay who workshopped and brainstormed and cheerleaded like an absolute champion, and always made sure I made them laugh.
> 
> One last disclaimer: everything I know about film and movie prediction I learned from behind-the-scenes videos and documentaries from Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones, because I am that kind of nerd, and even that knowledge I gleefully ignored for the sake of plot. Discrepancies and wild inaccuracies are inevitable; just roll with it?
> 
> Brian and Dave, wherever you are- this one is for you.

_[Dear Dave](http://www.sldn.org/blog/archives/stories-from-the-frontlines-a-love-letter-from-a-soldier/),_

_This is in memory of an anniversary – the anniversary of October 27th, 1943, when I first heard you singing in North Africa. That song brings memories of the happiest times I’ve ever known. Memories of a GI show troop – curtains made from barrage balloons – spotlights made from cocoa cans – rehearsals that ran late into the evenings – and a handsome boy with a wonderful tenor voice. Opening night at a theatre in Canastel – perhaps a bit too much muscatel, and someone who understood. Exciting days playing in the beautiful and stately Municipal Opera House in Oran – a misunderstanding – an understanding in the wings just before opening chorus._

_Drinks at “Coq d’or” – dinner at the “Auberge” – a ring and promise given. The show 1st Armoured – muscatel, scotch, wine – someone who had to be carried from the truck and put to bed in his tent. A night of pouring rain and two very soaked GIs beneath a solitary tree on an African plain. A borrowed French convertible – a warm sulphur spring, the cool Mediterranean, and a picnic of “rations” and hot cokes. Two lieutenants who were smart enough to know the score, but not smart enough to realize that we wanted to be alone. A screwball piano player – competition – miserable days and lonely nights. The cold, windy night we crawled through the window of a GI theatre and fell asleep on a cot backstage, locked in each other’s arms – the shock when we awoke and realized that miraculously we hadn’t been discovered. A fast drive to a cliff above the sea – pictures taken, and a stop amid the purple grapes and cool leaves of a vineyard._

_The happiness when told we were going home – and the misery when we learned that we would not be going together. Fond goodbyes on a secluded beach beneath the star-studded velvet of an African night, and the tears that would not be stopped as I stood atop the sea-wall and watched your convoy disappear over the horizon._

_We vowed we’d be together again “back home,” but fate knew better – you never got there. And so, Dave, I hope that where ever you are these memories are as precious to you as they are to me._

_Goodnight, sleep well my love._

_Brian Keith_

*

Kurt Hummel had always known his life was going to be amazing.

The reality of that amazing is something he’s not sure he’s ready to cope with. It will end eventually, he supposes, in failure or disgrace or death, and he tries not to brace himself for that, tries instead to live in the now, but...

Quite frankly there is quite a lot of now to take in.

Auditions had been something out of a dream, callbacks had been a blur. When the phone call came he’d stammered through his response and then sat down right there on the kitchen floor for a full five minutes before he felt like his legs might actually work again. And then this morning he’d gotten into his car and driven here, somehow, and then walked into the building and found the right room, somehow, and now he’s sitting at a conference table in a chair with a sticky wheel and the director has just passed him a script with a grin that’s welcoming and excited and Kurt has to grin back, a little breathlessly, because this is his life now, apparently, and it is _amazing._

“Alright, everybody here?” Johnny looks around the table and then at his assistant, who nods, and then creases his script open. “First, introductions.”

Kurt picks at the corner of his own script as they go around the table. He knows the story, loves the story, has since an author turned a three-hundred word letter into a novel sometime in his junior year of college. He’s got a copy tucked into his bag at his feet right now, battered and dog-eared, the book he’d spent a lonely spring and summer reading and re-reading. It’s left him with strong feelings about the narrative and stronger feelings about the characters, and as he looks around the table he wonders who is going to be who, and how they are going to - how he is ever going to - make this story on film as good as the one he has in his head. This is important, and he’s going to work hard for it.

It’s not a big cast, really; Dave and Brian, mostly, and Paul and Helen, and a handful of others. Marley is Helen, of course, and she catches his eye as she introduces herself and gives him a sweet smile. Marley’s the reason he’d even heard of this part - he’d never known her at McKinley, but years after they’d both graduated they’d run into each other at a show opening in New York and had been in touch on and off since. How strange the webs that high school weaves. Paul turns out to be the guy sitting next to Marley, Charlie something or other, which means that the guy next to him must be -

“I’m Blaine,” must-be-Brian says. He looks around the table with an easygoing smile, and when his eyes meet Kurt’s they light up like Marley’s had, except -

Except not like Marley’s at all, and Kurt might just have forgotten to breathe for a second. “And I’ll be playing Brian Keith,” Blaine says, and he keeps looking at Kurt and then fucking winks and Kurt had thought he’d been done with blushing in high school but, no, nope, not at all. “So you’re my Dave?”

Curly dark hair, eyes warm and bright and gleaming with the force of his grin; this is a story about whirlwind romance and a love against all odds. Perfect.

“Yes,” Kurt says, and he should look at someone other than Blaine, he really should. “I’m your Dave.”

*

The coffeeshop is air conditioned about three degrees cooler than it really needs to be, and sweat prickles cold and uncomfortable on the back of Kurt’s neck as Blaine slides into the seat across from him and passes him a cup. Their fingers brush, and Kurt can feel Blaine’s skin, cool and damp from the condensation, before he sits back.

“Thank you,” Kurt unwraps a straw and pokes it through the lid and then isn’t sure what to do, or say, next. Sitting in a California coffeeshop opposite your really rather gorgeous co-star for your debut film: things life growing up in semi-rural Ohio does not prepare you to handle.

“So,” Blaine smiles and Kurt smiles back, he can’t help it. “Have you ever done a film like this before?”

Kurt shakes his head. “Not in a big role like this.” It still feels like more of a guilty confession than he knows that it is, and he chases the grit of undissolved sugar at the bottom of his coffee with his straw.

Blaine’s eyebrows go up. “This is your first part? Wow. Congratulations.” It’s sincere, not even a hint of sarcasm or disdain in his voice, and Kurt is more grateful for that than he wishes he were. It’s intimidating, working with such practiced actors - even Marley has a longer film resume than he does - and Kurt’s confidence that he can do it doesn’t entirely ameliorate

“Well, not my _first_ first part. I’ve done little things before. I did Broadway before I moved out west, and I’ve done a little film here. Nothing like this, though. It’s -” there’s something open and eager in Blaine’s face, and it makes Kurt able to be honest, at least a little. “It’s kind of scary, actually.”

“How’s that?” Blaine leans back easily in his seat; everything about him is easy; relaxed, sure. And Kurt, as much as he has worked for and dreamed of a job like this, can’t help feeling like a small fish in a very, very big pond.

“Well, it’s just, I mean - kind of a lot. This is a big story. It means something to a lot of people. And if we do it right, it will mean something to a lot more people. And that’s amazing, it really is, but it’s also...scary. I mean, what if I screw it up? No one’s going to be inspired by oh-hey-that-movie-with-Blaine-Anderson-and-that-other-guy-I-didn’t-like-him.” Kurt quirks a grin and crushes another bit of sugar with his straw.

“Hey, none of that,” Blaine smiles and nudges at his foot under the table. “I saw your tapes, you’re really good.” Kurt raises an eyebrow. “What? You are. And they wouldn’t have cast you if they didn’t want you in the part. I have faith.” He grins around his straw and Kurt has to duck his eyes again.

“So what about you? Have you ever done anything like this?”

Blaine lifts a shoulder, the easy modesty of someone who has something to be modest about. “Sort of similar, yeah. It should be so much fun - and if you ever want to practice or do extra rehearsals or anything, just let me know.”

“Oh, I - I won’t intrude, or take up any of your time or anything,” Kurt rushes to interject, and now his really-rather-gorgeous-costar-in-his-debut-film thinks he’s a helpless charity case who needs leading by the hand, wonderful.

“It’s not an intrusion, really, Kurt,” Blaine smiles again, and Kurt thinks he feels the press of his foot again under the table, but he can’t be sure. “Besides, I think we should spend time together anyway. Brian and Dave, well - you know the story. You and I should at least be comfortable with each other.”

The inflection he puts on “story” makes Kurt’s blood run warm. He twirls his straw in his coffee and makes himself hold Blaine’s gaze, even if he’s sure the force of his blush is showing. And maybe it’s not what he’d normally do, and maybe he has no idea what’s going on here, but - it’s a new year, a new project, and he has no reason not to. So, trying to ignore that low hum of warning in his chest, the threat of things getting out of hand, out of control, Kurt says “sure,” and lets his voice go just that little bit lower. “I’d love to.”

Definitely Blaine’s foot this time, against Kurt’s ankle. “Great.”

*

Costume fittings, Kurt thinks sourly, as he has to change shirts for the fourth time in a row, are the worst.

It’s not that he minds being, essentially, a prop to be manhandled and stripped and rebuilt as the Powers That Be deem necessary. It’s how he uses his own body, after all; a tool, something to put clothes on and look good with. It’s just that he likes having clothes on, or having them off, and this constant on-off-on leaves his skin feeling weirdly chafed and always drives him crazy hours before the costume people are done doing their job.

Blaine pokes his head around one of the dividing screens, one shoulder conspicuously bare. “That’s not a happy sound. What, tired of being a human pincushion already? Joke, that was a _joke_ Anita, you know you guys are the best.” Blaine puts his hand over his heart as the costume mistress turns to glare at him.

Kurt just wriggles his shoulders uncomfortably and steps down off the stool so Pat can start making adjustments to his collar. “No. Just bored.”

“Well, let’s see if I can help with that.” Blaine disappears behind his screen again, and when he reappears he’s tugging his own shirt back down over his head. He snags Kurt’s script off the table and then props himself up on a stool. “Alright,” Blaine flips it open and starts flipping through it, ankles swinging back and forth. “Shall we start at the very beginning?”

“They very best place to start,” Kurt deadpans, and Blaine grins at him before he starts reading.

“Act one, scene one. Aerial shots of North Africa, circa 1944. F4F Wildcats in the sky, characteristic army tents on the ground to set the period. Sun is low on the horizon, rising - or setting. Slow fade in of camp sounds - voices, motors, horns. Somewhere a piano is playing. The text of a letter appears onscreen,” Blaine clears his throat, and when he speaks again, his voice is lower, his inflection slower. “‘Dear Dave, This is in memory of an anniversary – the anniversary of October 27th, 1943, when I first heard you singing in North Africa.’ Are they actually making you sing?”

That last part is in Blaine’s usual timbre, all quick enthusiasm, and Kurt looks up in surprise from where Pat’s now tacking a hem on his trouser leg. “Of course they are. It’s in the character description, isn’t it?”

“Well, sure, but you never know. You sing, then?”

“Yes, I actually sing. And not just that celebrity-who-sings-for-a-part-singing, either,” he says, with the lift of an eyebrow, before Blaine can ask. “I was a national show choir champion in high school.”

“Oooh, show choir, that’s the real deal, then.” Kurt barely restrains the urge to stick his tongue out at him, and settles for a smirk instead. Blaine goes on: “What year did you win nationals?”

“I think it was - yeah. Senior year. So, 2012.”

“2012.” Blaine stares up at the ceiling, counting something on his fingers. “McKinley High. New Directions, right?”

Kurt realizes his mouth is open, and closes it. “...how did you know that?”

Blaine shrugs easily. “Dalton Academy Warblers. You guys beat us at Sectionals that year.”

“...you were a Warbler? You’re from _Ohio_?” Kurt’s not sure which of those is the more surprising piece of information. It’s a twofold shock - the small-world aspect of finding himself with someone from so close to home so far away from home, and the one of finding someone so apparently successful who grew up practically next door to him. Kurt’s always known it could be done, and, more importantly, that he could do it, but still, he’s never known from Ohio who has actually succeeded the way Blaine has. It’s disorienting, in an odd way, and at the same time Kurt feels vaguely cheated. He was supposed to be Lima’s great success story, the first one to really get out and make his mark on the world. And now here Blaine is, speaking in easy L.A. tones over midwestern vowels, and for a brief moment Kurt is wildly, irrationally jealous.

“Westerville,” Blaine affirms. “I moved out here as soon as I could, though. Where’d you go to school?”

“You’re done, Kurt,” Pat says, and takes the shirts she’s been working on and disappears with Anita. At Kurt’s raised eyebrow Blaine stands up and ducks back behind his screen so Kurt can change back into his street clothes.

“I didn’t, actually,” he says to the screen, and at Blaine’s interrogative noise he pulls on his own jeans and sits down to lace up his boots. “I didn’t go to school.” It stopped stinging a long time ago, NYADA and rejection, and Kurt is fiercely proud of what he’s done on his own since then. It had been crushing at the time, but now it’s just one more victory, one more challenge overcome. “I used to want to do musical theatre.” Kurt rebuttons his cardigan and picks up his bag from the corner, and rounds the corner of the screen to find Blaine sitting on his own dressing table, feet propped on a chair, arms crossed on his knees. “But this is not exactly a face that inspires great romantic leads.”

Blaine tilts his head, assessing him frankly, and then flicks his eyes down to the script dangling from Kurt’s hand. “No great romantic leads, hm.”

“Well,” Kurt leans so he can fix his hair in the mirror over Blaine’s shoulder. “That’s because Johnny’s an open-minded director. And I didn’t shave for a week before the audition.” He falls back on his heels and finds himself unexpectedly close to Blaine, who’s grinning up at him with those big brown eyes sparkling with amusement, and jealousy and pride and a weird trickle of want are making soup of his equilibrium right now.

“Is that why?” Blaine asks, picking up his own bag as Kurt heads for the door.

“Why what?”

“Why this is your first big movie? Like I said, Kurt, you’re...really good. But I can see how you could be - I mean maybe -”

“Typecast?” Kurt holds the door open for him. “You could say that. It’s fine,” he smiles to reassure Blaine, who looks kind of like he wants to backpedal. It’s not like it’s not true, or that his luck hasn’t started looking dramatically up recently. “There are plenty of roles for the baby-face gay, but they weren’t what I wanted to do. So I didn’t!” he sings, and starts down the stairs.

Outside the setting sun is glaringly bright after the cool dim of the dressing rooms, and Kurt squints and fishes his sunglasses out of his bag.

Blaine’s holding up a hand to keep the sun out of his eyes, and is looking at Kurt with an odd expression. “You mean, you - got parts? You’ve had offers, you just -”

Kurt shrugs and starts walking towards his car. “I knew what I wanted to do. And I wasn’t going to waste my time doing something I knew wasn’t going to make me happy. And as long as I wasn’t starving, it worked pretty well as a philosophy.” It’s one of the things he’s most proud of in his career, if it can even be called that, so far. He hasn’t loved every part he’s done, but he hasn’t starved, and he’s never done anything he’s been ashamed of. It’s not the world’s greatest kind of achievement, but it’s some kind of one, and one he’s glad to have.

After a moment, Kurt can hear Blaine’s footsteps catching up to him, and then his voice, sounding younger now, more midwest than west coast. “I don’t know if you’ve got, ah, plans for the weekend, but do you want to come to my place? I can - cook something up, we can work on our parts if you want?”

Kurt turns to face him, fingers curling around the strap of his bag. “You cook?”

Blaine grins. “Of course I cook.”

“Sure,” Kurt says, and gives Blaine a wave before he turns away. “I’d love to.”

*

Set. Lights, equipment, people, eternal hurry-up-and-wait. During a lull Kurt drags a chair to a quiet corner and takes a moment to just breathe. There’s nothing new to him about this, not yet, except the idea that after today or this week or even this month his part isn’t going to be over, that he has months of this left. It’s an exhilarating thought. It’s also exhausting, and a little bit intimidating.

“Hey, Kurt.” He feels arms resting on the back of his chair, a chin settle itself on his head. He cranes his neck around to see.

“Hello, Marley.”

“Hey,” she drapes herself more comfortably over the back of his chair, and Kurt reaches back to pat at her arm. “How’s the first day going?”

“Can’t complain. Oh, did they finish your costume? Come around here, let’s see.”

The bounce in Marley’s step makes him smile. Whenever she’s working she never looks anything less than utterly joyful, like she knows without a doubt that she is doing exactly what she wants to do with her life, and is thrilled about it. It’s one of the things that they’d bonded over, the night they’d run into each other in New York years ago, after the tentative rounds of excuse- me-are-you? and don’t-I-know-you-from-? Art is the wonderful. Performing is amazing. And slipping into different clothes and hair and bringing someone else to life on stage or on film is fucking heaven.

Marley looks beautiful, as always, and when he compliments the stitching on her collar (they have a 1938 Singer in the costume shop, which is a beast of a machine but Kurt appreciates the attention to detail) she just smiles, something a little wicked in her eyes.

“Speaking of historical accuracy. Have you seen Blaine today?”

Kurt shakes his head, and Marley just grins wider. “What?” he demands.

“Oh, nothing.” Marley clasps her hands behind her back and twists a little, back and forth, a schoolgirl with a secret.

“Marley...”

Her eyes flick up over his head. “Hi Blaine!” she chirps, and then shrugs happily at Kurt. He glares at her until Blaine comes up and gives her a one-armed hug, which she returns, because apparently Johnny has managed to cast the two people who make friends the fastest in the world.

“Hi, Marley, Hi, Kurt, wow, you guys look amazing.”

Kurt lifts his arm at the elbow from the chair to wave, while behind Blaine Marley raises a pointed eyebrow. Well - there’s a reason the man-in-uniform is such a cliche.

Blaine’s mouth is twitching at the corner and he looks like he’s about to say something when there’s a shout across the room. Blaine glances over at it and then down at Kurt, and holds out a hand. “That’s us. Ready to rock this?”

Kurt lets his smile go ironic, and takes his hand. “As I’ll ever be.”

*

Blaine’s house is small but light and airy, and the kitchen is bright in the lowering dusk. Kurt perches himself on a stool at the island, and watches Blaine as he moves around the space, opening cupboards and singing along with the music on the iPod. ( _Red city kiss and your black eyes roll back, midnight organ flight -_ ) It’s hard to sit still, though, when there are food preparations going on, and eventually he hops off the stool to stand at Blaine’s shoulder, where he’s frowning into a bubbling pot. “Can I help with anything?”

Blaine considers the array of ingredients on the counter, and then Kurt. “Can you handle the pasta?”

Kurt raises an eyebrow. “Blaine. Please.”

“Hey, you never know.” Blaine puts a hand on Kurt’s shoulder to stand on tiptoe and pulls down a colander from the cupboard. “The peanut butter’s in the cupboard next to the fridge.”

Dinner is peanut tilapia and noodles and a plate of cantaloupe from the farmer’s market down the street. “You have to come some weekend,” Blaine tells Kurt, nudging his hip aside to reach for a melon baller. “They have the best fruit selection, and there’s this one baker with molasses cookies to _die_ for.”

L.A. is cool but not cold in January, but still not nice enough to be outside once the sun goes down, so Blaine pushes the sliding glass door open to let in the breeze. They sit at the table and eat while the purple dusk fades to black. The iPod keeps playing ( _can you see in the dark, can you see the look on your face?_ ) and Kurt settles into the rhythm of conversation and laughter and the sweet bite of the wine, and follows Blaine into the living room when he pads off to fetch his guitar.

The room is - a mess, actually, and Blaine looks up guiltily from shifting a stack of notebooks off of a battered guitar case. “Um. Sorry. I didn’t really get a chance to clean up in here.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Kurt perches on the arm of the sofa, the seat of which is cradling a keyboard, its cord coiling loose and unplugged. “You should see my brother’s apartment. Actually, no, you shouldn’t. It took him years to realize that you need to change the bag in a vacuum cleaner.”

“Oh god.”

“Yeah.”

Blaine gets the guitar out of the case, and folds his knee underneath himself to sit on the desk chair and check the tuning. Kurt pushes the keyboard aside to give himself enough room to slide down on the couch. “I didn’t know Brian played.”

“Sure he does. How else is he going to win the handsome boy with the wonderful voice?” He grins at Kurt’s arched eyebrow. “Although,” Blaine traces a string thoughtfully with his thumb. “Probably not guitar, though, not in the forties.” He tucks his chin in to look down at the instrument, and lets the strings jangle still for a long moment.

“Would piano do it?” Blaine keeps his head tipped down, but looks up at Kurt through his eyelashes. The evening’s been friendly and sweet so far, but Blaine’s eyes are glittering and dark, and they bubble something low in Kurt’s stomach.

“A real piano, maybe,” he says, when he’s sure his voice isn’t going to crack from how dry his mouth suddenly is. “Not just -” he slides his fingers along the silent keys of the keyboard next to him, and doesn’t miss the way Blaine’s eyes follow his hands.

“Dave needs proper wooing. Got it.” Blaine winks at him, and Kurt’s fingers slip on the imaginary song.

*

They do actually work, a little - much more than a little, really. It’s easy to discuss motivation as they rinse the dishes, easy to debate tone and delivery as they pack away the leftovers, easy to go for Blaine’s battered paperback (not as dog-eared as Kurt’s but more written in, and some pages are nearly illegible for the scrawling and underlining in every color ink imaginable) when they get into an argument over some finer point of the story , easy to sit side-by side at the kitchen island, bumping elbows as they drink coffee and flip between their favorite parts.

“The dramatic first meeting. I love that scene.”

“Mmm, yes.” Kurt smooths the wrinkled page fondly.

“Think you’ll be ready to play it?”

Kurt considers that. To be honest, he is nervous. This won’t be the stage, he knows, there will be multiple shots at this, he knows. But this will be the first moment of something important, and it needs to go well, it needs to feel right, to make the rest of it be all it can be. Blaine, he knows, can do it. It’s remarkable how easily, already, he can slip between Blaine and Brian, like they’re two different people who just happen to exist in the same body. Kurt still doesn’t feel as sure in Dave’s skin; there are gaps in him, things Kurt doesn’t know and doesn’t understand.

“I will be,” he says firmly, because no matter what else, he does know himself. He can do this, because he has to, and more importantly, because he wants to.

Blaine tips his hand towards Kurt’s, and Kurt hands him the book. “Have you ever had a moment like that?” he asks, and when Kurt doesn’t answer right away his eyes flick up to him. “When everything just stops, and you just - know?”

Kurt leans his head on his fist, looks at the book in Blaine’s. “Once or twice.”

“Was it like with -?” Blaine tilts his hand, and the book with it.

Completely honest, apparently, is the answer. “In some ways. Better, in some ways. Not so much in others.”

“How was it better?” Blaine’s eyes on him are oddly intense, and Kurt’s not entirely sure what he’s trying to ask, or why.

“Well, it wasn’t in the middle of a 1940s warzone.”

Blaine chuckles, but his eyes fall from Kurt’s face back to the book. “And how was it worse?”

Kurt waits to answer until Blaine looks up at him again. “They didn’t exactly outlast me. Not really any loves for the ages. Unfortunately.”

“And that’s what you want?” The mood is too heavy, suddenly, and Kurt doesn’t know how to read the look on Blaine’s face. It’s on the tip of Kurt’s tongue to say “yes,” because he does, always has. But Kurt is not immune to temptation and maybe, just maybe, this man can be his exception.

“Who doesn’t?” he finally says, and the moment keeps hanging there. Kurt thinks about it, is suddenly very aware that it is very late at night by now, and that they are alone, and together. Blaine doesn’t say anything else, just looks at him, and Kurt knows that all he would have to do is say the word, to reach across the narrow space between them and touch Blaine’s hand, for this night to get much more intense.

But the moment stretches, and thins, and then Blaine blinks and Kurt feels it, with its promise and its tension, slide away. He looks at the wall over Blaine’s shoulder, anywhere but at Blaine, and his eyes fall on the clock on the wall. He startles.

“Oh my god, how did it get so late?”

Blaine cranes his head around to look. “Oh, wow.” Kurt can see his throat working as he swallows and turns back to him. “I - will you. Do you want - will you be okay getting home?”

“I’ll be fine.” Kurt slides off his stool; he’s been sitting cross-legged for so long that his foot is asleep, and he works his ankle against the sudden flare of pins and needles. “Thanks. For dinner. It was - really nice.”

“Anytime. Really, Kurt.”

Blaine walks him to the door and flips on the porch light for him, and waits in the doorway while Kurt waves and gets his car unlocked. Once he’s set his GPS for home and waited for the door to close again behind Blaine, he slumps back in the seat and wonders just who he thinks he’s kidding - and wonders what the hell he’d almost done.

His coworker Blaine Anderson: talented, successful, sexy as hell, and, apparently, interested – just maybe not in a great romance. Exactly and nothing like what Kurt wants, and nothing Kurt can have, anyway.

He hangs on to the wheel and thumps his forehead onto his hands. Perfect.

*

The next afternoon Kurt tries, with varying degrees of success, to put Blaine out of his mind. It’s not even worth worrying about right now; he has a job to do, and he can’t afford to the distraction.

Dave. Who is Dave, what does he want, how does he act, how does he think... He’s been Dave for nearly two weeks already, he should know him better than this, but he doesn’t. He plucks a thread from the sleeve of his jacket - a jacket, just a jacket; a costume, not _his_ clothes, and frets.

“Hey, Kurt?” Julianne sticks her head around the corner of a flat. “Matt asked me to give you these.” She holds out a stack of sheet music. “He said there’s a piano in the back if you want to practice.”

Kurt glances at a nearby clock; an hour until they’re due to start filming. Plenty of time to practice. Right.

The piano is easy to find, an old battered upright tucked into a corner behind a wheeled chalkboard and a stack of chairs. Kurt sets the music on the stand and scrapes out the bench and plucks out the first few notes - It’s not perfectly in tune, but it doesn’t really have to be.

Thankfully, it’s not that difficult a piece. He hums his way through the melody the first time through, and by the third time he feels confident enough to start singing along with the notes. Somewhere through the fourth or fifth time, though, Kurt can feel something - it’s not a shift, it’s not so dramatic as that, first one-thing-then-another. It feels like...dissolving. Dissolving, and reforming into something else, so gradually he almost doesn’t notice it at first.

He plays it a sixth time, and then a seventh. He emphasizes different notes, and finds different lyrics touching him in different ways. The eighth time through he lifts a hand to turn the page and knows where he got that frayed patch on his sleeve, makes a mental note to fix it later tonight, if he has time, after the show.

Nine times, ten. His posture changes. More bowed in the shoulders, straighter at the neck, he shifts his feet on the peddle and -

“Kurt?” It’s Julianne again, and his fingers jangle the keys.

“Yeah?” His breath feels short, and like it’s coming from very far away.

“It’s almost time, they need you -”

“Yeah.”

He gathers up the sheet music and follows Julianne on legs that feel numb and wobbly and not entirely like his own. Well, they’re not, really, not entirely, not now. He feels ridiculous for worrying, the part of him that is left to feel ridiculous over anything, worried like this was never going to happen, when it’s so obvious now that it had to happen. It’s the music. It’s always the music. He really should know that by now.

Up ahead he sees Brian and flicks his eyes away; it’s not time, not yet, the him-that-is-him knows. It will be soon.

The piano, this one a slightly-chipped baby grand, is on a raised stage between the silvery-gray curtains and the lights tucked in tin cans. He slides the stool back with a foot and takes a seat, flexes his fingers over the keys. Johnny says something; lights flicker on. Time to start.

*

It fades, after a while, and after a little while longer Kurt feels like he can actually control it, fading in and out of character at will. When the cameras are on it’s Dave, now, it never will not be, not unless he wants it, and why would he want that? Dave in his fingers on the keys, the air of a North African night in his lungs when he takes a breath. In these moments, this is who he is meant to be, this is why acting is glorious.

Blaine-Brian is there, too, Brian when they’re rolling, Blaine when they’re not, and Kurt enjoys watching the shifting of his shoulders as he slides between the two. He smiles between takes when Blaine frowns and tries to smooth down one of his curls into Brian’s tidy coif, only to get his hand slapped away by a makeup girl. Take three and Kurt forgets why he was ever worried, about Dave or about Blaine. He skims his fingers in an extra flourish over the keys, this is just _fun._

By the next take Kurt’s feeling confident enough to start playing with his audience; a few extras there for the wider shots but mostly crew, and he grins and bounces his shoulders when a prop girl starts shimmying off to the side in time to the beat. He winks at her and scans the rest of the little crowd. Blaine is leaning against something, arms folded over his chest, watching him with his mouth twitched into a grin of delight and something just a little like awe. Well. Kurt had told him he could sing. Blaine shouldn’t look so surprised. Still, it’s nice to be able to prove it, and he raises his eyebrows, just a little twitch, see what I can do?

Blaine’s eyebrow goes up when he realizes Kurt’s watching him, and Kurt lets himself look, at this Brian-called-Blaine, a down-up sweep of his eyes that takes in everything. Polished boots, neat uniform, sleeves rolled up to the elbows and the button undone at the collar, sleek black hair and warm-toned skin, and eyes bright and warm and looking right back at him, and oh.

There is fun flirtation, and then there is crushing, and there is a fine line between the two that Kurt just went careening over with no chance of going back. Blaine - Brian - no, Blaine, definitely Blaine, the spark in his eyes is all Blaine - meets his eye and smiles and Kurt might flub a note, he’s not sure, the piano and the music and even Dave seem profoundly unimportant at the moment.

“That’s great!” Johnny yells. Kurt startles and sees Blaine jump too, like maybe he’d forgotten something else was going on. “One more, just to be sure -”

There’s the hum and bustle of cameras being reset, and when Kurt looks back from straightening the sheet music, Blaine’s gone.

They do more takes; they aren’t nearly as good. Kurt has a horrible feeling about which one they’re going to ultimately pick.

There are reasons other than concerns for professionalism that crushing on your costar is a terrible, terrible idea.

*

“Hey, Kurt.”

Blaine’s in the doorway, one hand on the doorframe and swinging a little.

“Mm?”

“Are you doing anything Friday night?”

“I don’t think so.” Kurt contemplates the stack of papers on the dressing table and tries to make himself focus on what he’ll need to take home. “Marley wanted to go down to the harbor at some point but I don’t think -”

“Will you go out with me? On Friday, I mean. If you want to.”

It’s less smooth, more rushed, than Kurt might have expected. “Um.” When he flicks his eyes up they meet Blaine’s in the mirror, wide and a little excited, and he can’t help the grin. “Do you think it would be okay? I mean, would anybody mind?”

“Kurt, this is L.A., do you really think -”

“Not like that,” Kurt stands up and turns around to face Blaine in the doorway. “I mean - I don’t want to make anything weird here, or anything, or violate any - workplace ethics -”

“Kurt.” Blaine lets go of the doorframe and starts him. “It’s not violating any workplace ethics.” He holds up a finger when Kurt opens his mouth again. “And it won’t make anything weird. I promise. We’re professionals, right?”

Blaine’s standing very close by now. Kurt makes himself look at his eyes, and not at where the collar of his shirt is open, smooth cotton against tan skin. “Of course.”

“So.” This close, Kurt can see the fine crinkles at the corners of Blaine’s eyes when he smiles. “Friday night? Eight? Or - whenever we get sprung from here?”

Kurt tries to swallow, but his mouth is too dry. “That would be lovely.”

*

“Marley.”

“Hey, Kurt, what’s up? You sound - distressed.”

“I can’t go out with you tomorrow.”

“That’s fine, we didn’t even set a time - why? Are you okay?”

“I may be. Freaking out.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s - wrong. Not - wrong. I’m just. Freaking out. Um. Blaine asked me out.”

Marley whistles, and Kurt pulls the phone away from his ear, wincing. “Way to go, soldier! So, where are you going?”

At that moment - of course - Blaine rounds the corner, and Kurt hisses into the phone “Sorry have to go call you later -”

He hangs up on Marley’s puzzled “Bye?” and stuffs his phone back into his pocket. Somehow, he finds an easy smile for Blaine, whose powers of observation are apparently not to be mocked and had heard him all the way down the costume trailer, where Kurt is tucked between racks of reproduction military-surplus blouses, circa 1940.

“Hey,” Blaine’s smile is puzzled and concerned, and it’s not helping Kurt’s blush. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Totally. Just, um.” Kurt’s fingers close around an olive-drab sleeve for support, and he nearly pulls it off the hanger. “Appreciating the craftsmanship.”

Blaine gives him one more glance and then apparently decides to roll with it. “They are pretty amazing.” He scans the rack and then - carefully - tugs out a pretty white dress, something of Marley’s, probably.

“Did you know some war brides used to make their wedding dresses out of parachute silk?”

Kurt eases his shoulders away from the rack he’d been close to trying to hide himself in. “No, I didn’t.”

“Yeah. When the paratroopers jumped into France, they had a main parachute and a reserve parachute. Since silk was so rare, with rationing and everything, some of them carried their reserve parachutes around for months until they had the opportunity to mail them back home. To be used for, among other things, wedding dresses.”

Kurt lets a finger trail along the soft-smooth fabric. “Wouldn’t it get dirty? Getting hauled through a warzone like that?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Silk’s pretty sturdy, you know.”

“Mm. Yes.”

“I always thought it was really romantic, actually.” Blaine’s smile is soft, and he moves other hangers aside so he can carefully slide the dress back into place. “Imagine carrying that around for so long, knowing what you wanted it to be used for, just thinking and dreaming about the day you’d be back home with your sweetheart.”

Kurt adjusts the hang of a sleeve so it won’t wrinkle on the rack. “It just makes me think about all the ones who didn’t make it back. And - all the ones who didn’t have anything to come back to.”

When he looks up Blaine’s watching him, something Kurt hasn’t seen before in his eyes, something dark and a little sad and, strangest of all, a little scared. “Romance doesn’t always have to be happy,” he finally says.

Kurt doesn’t know how to reply to that, or how to keep meeting Blaine’s eyes, which are dark and, from this close - too close - richly colored, brown and green and gold. The moment settles tight around Kurt’s heart, something light turned weirdly deep and somehow strange, and Kurt doesn’t know what to do until Blaine shakes his head, just a tiny movement, and pulls another dress off the rack.

“If you think the parachutes are awesome, you should see what they could do with mosquito netting...”

*

 _Someone who understood,_ says the letter. Kurt tries to imagine that, imagine what someone understanding would have meant to Dave, seventy years ago. High school hadn’t been easy for Kurt but high school is never easy for anyone, and there is a world of difference between a small town in the oughts and an entire world that did not, would not, accept a difference.

It’s almost unfathomable to imagine, the depths of that isolation, and it’s very nearly painful to sink into Dave and his mind and his world and let go of the things that had kept him, Kurt-him, anchored when things were bad. Without his dad, without Carole and Finn and the ridiculous and fierce love of a high school glee club, without knowing that he could get out, move on, that things were better somewhere else, without knowing that things _had_ gotten better, Kurt, Dave, feels lost and adrift, lonely and shockingly angry at the world that will never let him have what comes so easily to others.

And so when the uniform is on and his hair is slicked back; when Brian finds him after the show, puts a hand on his arm and takes him somewhere they can talk, leans close at the bar and offers, so shyly, a confession; when Dave takes a breath and takes a chance and reaches out a hand and feels warmth and callouses under his fingertips; when the isolation of a lifetime starts to shiver and then crack, the first disbelieving thaw of an early spring - it’s like someone took his heart and cracked it open and let promises like lifeblood flow into it: Not alone. Never alone.

_Someone who understood._

Dave’s voice shakes, and Brian’s hand is hot in his.

*

After work Kurt hurries home to shower and change and spends way too long picking out an outfit, but it’s worth it when he meets Blaine outside the club and Blaine’s eyes go a bit wide, tracking down his body and up again.

“Hi there,” Blaine’s voice is warm as he holds out an arm. “You look amazing.”

“So do you,” and he does, Blaine is gorgeous in Brian’s uniform but out of it, in well-fitting jeans and a shirt whose collar leaves all the interesting parts of his throat interestingly shadowed... Kurt has to stop himself from throwing all restraint and just touching when Blaine escorts him into the bar with a careful hand just low enough on his back to send warm shivers up Kurt’s spine.

At a table tucked into the corner out of the dance floor lights, Blaine leans forward, chin on his fist and eyes bright in the low light. “Come here often?”

“Are you always so original?” Kurt quirks the corner of his mouth and toys with his straw.

“I find the classics are usually the best. We can’t all be cutting-edge avant-garde performers like yourself.” Under the table his knee knocks into Kurt’s, and he grins.

“Yes, well.” Kurt takes a careful sip and then sets his glass back down. “It’s not a lifestyle I’d recommend for everyone anyway.” Small artsy shows, weird bit parts, aborted attempts to take his dad’s well-meant advice and write his own shows – it’s some version of the dream, sure, just not the one he _really_ wants to live.

“Too uncertain?” Blaine’s fingers tap on the lip of his glass.

“Too lonely.”

“Lonely at the top?”

“The edge, more like.” Kurt pokes at an ice cube. “You’re the one at the top.”

Blaine shrugs, that unassuming lift of a shoulder. “Hazard of the profession. Stick around too long, and someone’s bound to remember you.”

“In acting?” Kurt raises a disbelieving eyebrow.

Blaine shrugs again, both shoulders this time. Something about the movement seems to shrink him a little, but then Kurt blinks and Blaine looks the same as he always has, eager and happy. After a hesitant pause, Blaine shifts in his seat and leans towards him across the table, his grin almost too bright.

“So do you come here often?”

Kurt has to duck his head to hide his grin behind his glass, something in Blaine’s smile waking something bright in his brain. He’s in a club, in L.A., with his unfairly attractive coworker who is also oh a movie star, and he knows neither of them have named it out loud but knows that that doesn’t make it any less of a date. Kurt Hummel’s life is amazing.

“No. Um, no.” Kurt keeps tracing water-rings, but this time there’s an overawareness of the slick of the water and the smooth finish of the table, his own skin probably too-pale in the dim lighting. “It’s not really my scene.”

“Oh, god, really?” Blaine frowns anxiously. “Kurt, you should have said something, we could have -”

“It’s fine,” Kurt smiles, drags his fingertips across the table to squeak off the last of the condensation, puts his fingers on Blaine’s wrist instead. “That doesn’t mean I don’t like it.”

“Oh,” Blaine says, and bites his lip. “That’s good, then.”

Kurt gives him a surer smile, and leaves his fingers there a moment too long before he moves his hand. The fabric of Blaine’s sleeve is soft and warm, and Kurt watches Blaine as he touches his tongue to where his lip had bitten and then takes a drink. He thinks, for the first time, really lets himself think, about what it would be like to touch Blaine, and not just for a part, to kiss him and see what his eyelashes looked like when his eyes were closed, fanned against his cheeks while Kurt -

Blaine must feel him staring, because Kurt’s gaze has been caught and Blaine is staring back, something dark and too-intense there, and then he feels Blaine’s hand on the back of his, now, not a playful nudge this time but a touch, deliberate and sure.

Come home with me, his eyes say. It will be amazing, his fingers promise, skimming his skin. And it would be, Kurt knows. If he spent the night with Blaine, Blaine would look at him like that, eyes liquid-dark, and would touch him like this, like Kurt is desirable and wanted, and it would feel incredible.

But then Kurt would wake up in the morning, and then he’d have to leave.

And then he’d have to go to work with him.

He’d thought, sometimes, over the last two weeks, that he might be able to; that he could break years of precedent and probably unjustified pride in that precedent. He’d thought that maybe they could make it work; a night or two together but friends in the morning and on set; something fun, and easy, and almost expected. But right now, facing Blaine across a tiny table in a club in downtown L.A., imagining what it would be like to let Blaine take his hand and take him home, imagining sitting across from him at the lunch table knowing what he looks like under that open collar, Kurt knows that he can’t. It’s too much, too much out of Kurt’s control and in the hands of someone he barely knows. So he pulls his hand back, safely away from Blaine, and wraps his fingers around his glass, too-cold after the warm of Blaine’s skin.

The brightness in Blaine’s eyes dims. They stick to safe topics after that, polite questions and benign answers, and Blaine keeps his feet tucked under his own chair, his hands busy twisting a napkin into knots.

They part at the door, their cars in different directions, and after an uncomfortable shuffly see-you-on-Monday-have-a-good-night Kurt leans against the wall of the club and watches Blaine walk away. The bricks are gritty and cold in the cool night air, a welcome chill after the overheated air inside. In the cold white light of the streetlamps, Blaine’s shoulders look slumped.

Well. Fuck.

*

_Part 2 posting Thursday, February 21._


	2. Chapter 2

Dave watches them, across the room. Brian is animated; talking, laughing, but there’s something off about the way his shoulders are held, the way his hand is holding a glass. They’ve barely known each other a few weeks but he already knows the way the tendons are flexing in his wrist, too-tense as he shifts his glass from one hand to the other, and the lines around his mouth aren’t from laughter.

“What was that about?” he asks, when Brian comes back to him, shoulders still too tight. Brian shrugs - one shoulder - and takes a drink. “Nothing.”

“Don’t lie to me.” It’s meant to be gentle, a gentle touch on the wrist to accompany it, an encouraging reminder. But Brian’s eyes flash and he pulls his hand away, and it hurts more than it should.

“I’m _not._ It’s not _about_ that, Dave.”

“Well then what is it about?”

Three minutes later and outside now, behind the tent where Brian had dragged him, past the MPs that had ignored them, two little guys, not likely to cause any damage if fists did start flying.

“I thought you _understood_.” It’s a slap barely restrained, venom laced under the skin, and Blaine flinches back from the force of it.

“I - didn’t know.” There’s a tent rope behind him; Blaine backs into it and almost trips, then wraps his hand around it.

The world cracking, just a little bit, loneliness and isolation threatening to rush back in. It doesn’t help to see the same crack in Brian’s eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

Kurt says nothing, and walks away.

*

The atmosphere in the trailer is quiet, stale; the echoing stillness of a locker room after a loss. Kurt undresses slowly, peeling Dave off himself piece by piece and returning each to hangers or hampers as they requires. When he gets back here in the morning they’ll be clean again, ready to slip in again, reset for a fresh new start. Kurt wishes anything else were so simple.

Blaine had caught up to him late that afternoon, put a hand on his arm and tugged him to a quiet corner.

“Are you okay?” His frown of worry, at least, had been genuine.

“I’m fine.” It hadn’t even been a lie, and Kurt hesitated at that before he asked, “What about you?”

“Me?” Blaine had dropped Kurt’s arm, his uncurling fingers stripping away warmth. “I’m fine.”

“I just think maybe -”

“What?” Blaine’s concerned-worried frown had been back.. “Kurt?”

“I think we should.” Kurt had to duck his head, he couldn’t say this to those eyes. “Keep this strictly professional.”

“Oh.” Kurt raised his head again to see Blaine closing his empty hand around his own arm. “Of course. Yes. Of course.”

“I just - this part, it’s so big, and there’s so much work to do, I don’t want to - complicate, or jeopardize anything, and -” There’s - it can’t be disappointment, written behind Blaine’s eyes, except that it is, and the shock of that makes Kurt babble.

“It’s fine, Kurt.” Blaine had given him a tight smile, not angry, no, never angry, but disappointed, yes, and that just annoys Kurt more. This is _his_ choice to make, not Blaine’s. “You’re right, you - yeah.”

And so things aren’t _bad_ , which is good, but they’re still weird, and Kurt is annoyed at the stress of the distraction and flustered that he’s stressed over the distraction, and really, this whole mess is part of what he’d wanted to avoid in the first place.

It’s a relief to get home at the end of the day, juggling grocery bags and flipping the hall light on against the gathering gloom of the afternoon. It will probably rain tonight, good; he hasn’t had the time to water the flowers and now they’re just looking kind of sad.

His phone rings as he’s putting things away in the cupboards, and his heart gives a leap when he sees the name on the screen.

“Hi, Dad!” he chirps, happy, and stretches to get the pasta up on its proper shelf.

“Hey, buddy.” Over the line, his dad’s voice is reassuring in its familiar warmth. “How are you doing?”

“Great. Really great.” Kurt makes sure there’s nothing still out that needs to be refrigerated before he kicks another bag aside and pulls out a kitchen stool to sit down. “How are things there?”

“Good, good. Nothing really new to report. I was wondering more about you, haven’t heard from you in a while.”

“I know, I’m sorry, Dad. It’s just been busy.”

“Yeah, I know how it goes. Now you’re a big fancy movie star you’re going to forget all your friends and family.”

Kurt laughs with his dad; there’s no real malice in his voice. “It’s not like that, really,” he says, and smiles at his dad’s assenting hum down the line. “It’s just been -” he trails off, one foot kicking at the handle of a grocery bag. “It’s a lot of work. And it’s been - intense.” He leans an elbow on the counter, lets his head slump into his hand. “And these are the _easy_ weeks.”

“You taking good care of yourself?”

“Dad. Of course.”

“And are you having fun?”

Kurt folds his fingers under his chin, looks across the kitchen into the living room, where scripts are scattered across the coffee table, his afghan slumping to the floor from the couch where he’d fallen asleep last night without even making it to bed. On the fridge is a travel itinerary and printed google maps, highlighted and covered with notes. He hasn’t cleaned the bathroom in two weeks and just thinking about the scenes he has to start preparing for is making him feel nervy, fourteen, and terrifyingly unprepared.

“ _So_ much fun.”

“Well there you go.”

Kurt puts the rest of the groceries away and then starts throwing together dinner as he listens to his dad’s stories from the shop and gets the latest updates on Finn and then tells him about work, about the schedule and the crew and the _gorgeous_ restored Jeep they’d started to use yesterday. They talk until the chicken is actually in serious danger of going dry, and even then Kurt hangs up only reluctantly, with promises to call more often.

He picks up the afghan from the floor and snuggles into it in the corner of the couch to eat, watching the rain roll in out the window. He feels settled, now, calmer, sure of himself the way he always had in high school, the knowledge that he was destined for and capable of great things settled safely in his chest. It’s his dad’s quiet confidence that keeps him grounded and afloat, always has been.

Kurt washes the few dishes he’s managed to use and puts them away, straightens out the clutter on the coffee table. It’s raining in earnest now, heavy drops against the blackening window, and there’s a flicker of lightning in the distance. Kurt turns off the lights and wraps the blanket around his shoulders and watches the storm, counts the seconds between lightning and rumbles of thunder and feels it come closer, until a crack of lightning splits the air seemingly overhead, and the air shocks apart with the sharp _crack_ of the thunder, sudden and huge like a boulder splitting apart from its core. A really _big_ boulder.

In his pocket his phone buzzes.

_Fuck that was loud. Are you okay?_

Blaine. Kurt can’t help the smile as he texts back. _Of course I am. It’s just the angels bowling, didn’t your parents teach you anything?_

_Silly me._

Kurt bites his lip, worried for a moment that he’s overstepped somehow, until his phone buzzes again a moment later.

_I used to pretend it was flashbulbs on the red carpet._

The laugh snorts out before Kurt can help it. It’s the smallest kind of confession, the childish fantasies and lingering fears. _And what about the thunder?_ he texts back.

_Sound effects from my awesome action movie. Duh._

Thunder rumbles again, softer now, the storm starting to roll away.

_I pretended it was applause._

_...That’s totally perfect. Why didn’t I ever think of that?_

Because I spent my childhood dreaming of getting out, and I’m not sure you’ve realized yet that you already have. _Not everyone’s imagination can be as fabulous as mine._

_You got that right._

Kurt taps the phone off his leg, strains his ears for sounds of distant thunder. Nothing - just the rain against the window now, just sounding slow and somehow tired, the fury of the storm burned out.

_Well, I’m going to turn in now. Early day tomorrow._

_Ugh, don’t remind me. Have a good night, Kurt._

_You too._

Kurt goes through his skincare routine, brushes his teeth, undresses and crawls under the covers. It’s a long time, though, before he finally falls asleep, and when he does, he dreams about roaring crowds and lightning that sets the clouds on fire.

*

The next day on set Blaine greets him with a smile, small and gentle and nothing like his bright-eyed morning greeting every other day, and goes back to talking with Charlie, on the other side of the room.

Kurt runs lines with Marley, talks pacing and mood with Johnny, tries on a new costume for Anita, and doesn’t get jealous.

Still, when Blaine brings him a cup of horrible cafeteria coffee after lunch, when Kurt is sitting with his elbows on his knees staring off into space caught in a haze somewhere between time periods and moods where he was (was _not_ ) upset that Brian still wasn’t speaking to him, and _not_ watching the way Blaine made Charlie laugh, something settles calm again deep in his chest.

“Thanks,” he says, taking the offered cup and scooting over on the bench so Blaine can sit next to him.

He expects Blaine to say something; blows steam off the cup and watches it curl and wisp between them and waits, but Blaine is quiet, just sits with his feet scuffing back and forth on the floor, incongruous battered leather against pristine linoleum.

They stay there like that, side-by-side and silent, until break is over and the call comes to get back on set. Kurt brushes his pants smooth and stands, stacks his empty cup in Blaine’s, and offers Blaine a hand up.

Blaine looks at the offered hand, and checks Kurt’s face. Kurt just cocks his hip and waggles his fingers, an insistent _up!_ and Blaine laughs, and takes his hand.

*

Marley’s apartment is small but has a beautiful view of the city, lights sparkling along boulevards below, and Kurt takes a moment to admire the view as he unbuttons his jacket and Blaine shucks off his shoes in the tiny foyer.

In the living room, piled on a loveseat and futon and even an inexplicable ratty beanbag chair, are cast and crew, everyone Marley and Blaine could convince to come out on a Saturday night - not exactly a difficult task.

Marley sweeps in from the closet-sized kitchen and kisses them both on the cheek, and takes Blaine’s bag from the liquor store down the street and puts it on a sideboard that might have been a dresser in a former life. The seating is mostly full already, but Blaine takes a folding chair and swings it around to sit straddling the back of it, and Kurt squeezes onto the end of the loveseat next to Roy from sound design and takes the glass Cassie-the-set-dresser offers him with a smile.

He takes a sip and a moment to sink into the energy of the room; it’s early in the evening but the room is already hot with too many people in too small a space, too much energy and the start of too much alcohol. Kurt’s been in L.A. for a few years now; he’s gotten used to having his own house and car and space again after the claustrophobic oversaturation of New York, but there’s something instantly familiar and comfortable about the crush of bodies and pitch of energy in this little place with its disagreeable plumbing and whining radiator.

There’s a burst of laughter from the futon in the corner where four of the crew members are sitting cross-legged, knee-to-knee, and Blaine folds his arms on the back of his chair and leans towards them, glass dangling from his fingertips and his shirtsleeves rolled up. “What’s so funny?”

Jamie looks up at Blaine but doesn’t say anything, and Andrea plays with her straw in a guilty fidget, but Dan apparently has no such reservations. “Just taking bets on which of us is going to get hose-duty when you guys go on location.

“ - hose duty?”

“Sure, you know.” Dan uses a hand on Yori’s shoulder to swing his legs around to face Blaine. “When you and Kurt get hot-and-heavy behind the scenes. Whose job it is to turn the hose on you to keep you two apart.”

There’s surprisingly little malice in his voice; it’s all very much like Puck and his locker-room banter (and _oh_ how Kurt could have lived with so much less of that in his life, and oh he could very much live without this right now, too.) Do they - know? How do they know? He catches Marley’s eye over Blaine’s shoulder, but she just shrugs.

“Excuse me?” There are are pink spots high on Blaine’s cheeks, but his voice is mild.

“Aw, come on, Blaine. You’re a player! Serial dater! Driving the fangirls crazy, you are.” Dan winks. Blaine just takes a drink and raises an eyebrow. “Is there a - male - costar you haven’t gotten with?”

“I am not drunk enough to answer that yet,” Blaine says with a grin, and hands his now-empty glass to a passing Charlie with a puppy-eyed look.

“That face should be illegal, Anderson.” Charlie says with a roll of his eyes, but he takes it anyway.

“Just using my assets!”

“I bet you are,” Dan says, with something very much like a leer. Kurt frowns, and grips his glass tighter.

Andrea is scrolling through her phone now - looking up _People_ online, Kurt has a feeling - with Cassie leaning over her shoulder, biting her lip and giggling. Kurt downs the rest of his drink and hauls himself up from his cramped spot to join Charlie at the sideboard-bar.

*

“Are you drunk enough now?”

They’ve given up on trying to tetris themselves onto actual furniture and are sitting in a wide, lopsided circle on the floor. Cassie has started plaiting Marley’s long hair, and Marley has to twist her head over her shoulder to look at Blaine.

“Mm?”

“Head forward, Marls, it’s gonna be lopsided,” Cassie moves Marley’s head back to center.

“To tell us about your love life. You never tell me anything when you’re sober,” Marley pouts, and Blaine settles himself back on his hands and stretches his legs out in front of him.

“It’s not exactly like it’s not a matter of public record,” he says, and Andrea crows and goes back to searching through her phone. “And yes, Dan, there _have_ been coworkers I have not dated.”

“Sure, like, three of them.”

Blaine shrugs easily, and his shoulders flex interestingly with his weight back on his arms. “Nothing wrong with enjoying life.”

“You certainly look like you _enjoyed_ Jonathan Mackintosh,” Andrea giggles, waving the phone at Blaine.

“Like you wouldn’t?” Blaine’s grin is light, bright, but something in Kurt’s stomach isn’t sitting exactly right. He’s not jealous, not really - there’s no reason he and Blaine couldn’t have worked as well as any of Blaine’s other flings, and Kurt had been the one to say no - but more even than Blaine’s excited eyes and hot hands from that night Kurt remembers watching Blaine walk away, the slump to his shoulders, the so-un-Blaine-like-duck of his head.

“Are you sure there isn’t something you’d enjoy more?”

Dan hoots, but Blaine turns his bright-eyed gaze to Kurt. “What do you mean?”

“Romance,” Kurt quirks a smile. “The epic love story.” He waves his hand at the room.

Blaine’s smile has gone quiet, a little distant. “I don’t really think great romance always ends happily, Kurt.”

“I don’t think your flings are ending happily, either.” Kurt rests his chin on his fist, smiles to soften, just a little, the sting he wants to be there. “Or there wouldn’t be so many of them.”

Laughter from the room, and something moves in Blaine’s face, something angry behind his eyes, something gentle around his mouth, and the contradiction is too much for Kurt to know how to read. But because he learned something about the cruelty of mercy in high school, he leaves Blaine sitting there on the floor, looking after him, and goes to get another drink.

*

“What about you, Kurt?” Marley asks when Kurt gets back, reaching up to tug him down next to her in the circle. “How many hearts have you broken?”

“Come on, Marley, you know that.”

“Yes but _they_ don’t.”

Kurt rolls his eyes and settles himself more comfortably cross-legged. “Fine. Just the one.”

“Ooh, what was his name?” Lisa asks.

“Pictures!” Cassie demands, from where she’s leaned against Yori’s shoulder.

Kurt shifts his sit so he can dig his phone out of his pocket, scrolls through until he finds a good picture. He always means to go through and delete the pictures - god knows he has enough of them saved on his computer at home - but somehow he never gets around to it.

“His name is Chandler,” he says, handing over the phone, and Cassie coos and starts flicking through snapshots.

“Oh, he’s cute!” Flick, flick. “Oh, my god, he looks like you!”

“What?” Blaine looks over her shoulder, blinking as he follows the scrolling images. “Oh my god he does.”

“If you’re quite done?” Kurt holds his hand out, but Cassie pulls the phone toward her chest. “No way! You’ve been holding out on us, Kurt. What’s the story?”

“High school sweetheart,” Kurt says, and grins at the _ooohs_ that gets from the girls. “Well, sort of. We met in high school. Didn’t start dating til we were both in New York, though.”

“How long were you together?”

“Three years - almost four. Thank you,” he says, as Andrea passes the phone back to him.

“What happened?”

“Grew apart.” Kurt shrugs. It had been a slow unspooling of a relationship; good and then gone, and Kurt’s not even sure now how much he had been aware of it at the time until it had completely unraveled and he was alone, again. “It was good, though, he’s a great guy. I think he just got married last summer, actually.”

“Awww, Kurt.” Lisa leans on his shoulder. “That must have been so hard for you!”

“Not really. It really was a while ago.” He’d only worn sweats to work for three days after he’d gotten the news - a personal best. “But it was good while it lasted, and he deserves to be happy.”

“What about Lawrence?” Marley asks, twitching the end of her freshly-completed braid over her shoulder.

Kurt raises an eyebrow at her; she really should know better, and he’d be angry, but she’s so damn _sweet,_ and really only means well. “ _He_ broke _my_ heart.”

Blaine is leaned back against the couch again, and is quietly peeling the label off his beer bottle. Dan sighs unhappily.

“So if you’re a serial monogamist, does that mean I won’t get to be the hose guy?”

“Two relationship is not _serial,_ Daniel.”

Dan’s shoulders slump. “That’s even worse!”

*

Blaine folds his arms on the camp table and rests his chin on them, his eyes tracking the lighting crew as they string up wiring. They’re due to start rehearsing soon, and Kurt covers a yawn in his hand and flips through his script pages for the day.

“Dan asked me out.” Blaine’s voice is somewhat muffled by his arm.

“Come again?” Kurt glances up from the script.

“Dan.” Blaine sits up, stretches his arms behind his back, working out the early-morning kinks. “He cornered me after Marley’s party. Offered to be my fling or great romance, as I preferred.”

“Really,” Kurt raises an eyebrow.

“Yup.” Blaine rolls his shoulders and settles them more easily.

“Because he called me on Saturday and asked me out for drinks.”

“No shit.”

“Mhmm.” Kurt flips a page. “Said if I ever wanted to break out of my serial-lone-relationshipness, he’d be happy to help.”

Together they look over at Dan, who is very, very busy zip-tying cords into place, and not looking at either of them.

“What a fucking player.” Blaine looks so calmly indignant that Kurt has to laugh.

“Like you’re one to talk.”

Blaine shrugs, still indignant but less calm, now. “At least I have some discretion.”

“For what it’s worth, he apologized profusely once I. Detailed his character flaws. After he suggested I might be frigid and/or a tight-ass.”

“Really. I’d have paid to hear that conversation.”

“Stay tuned, then, I don’t know how long he’s likely to stay chastised. He was staring at your ass this morning.”

“I’m not as creative with my shutdowns as you are.”

“Mmm. Something we’ll have to work on, then.”

“Plus my ass is fantastic.”

“Blaine!”

“Made you laugh.”

Blaine winks as he unfolds himself from his seat, and heads to where Johnny is calling them to places.

*

Dave’s tent: olive-drab canvas and uncomfortable narrow cot; lit with lanterns and a pilfered flashlight and the soft glow from the bounceboards. The lights are blinking on and off, though - something wrong with the wiring or with a circuit, Kurt’s not sure, but the crew is bustling around muttering unhappily to itself and he and Blaine have been mostly left alone while whatever is broken is getting fixed. Stretched out on the cot next to him Blaine throws up a hand to shield his eyes from the sudden flare of a lantern that just got _way_ too much wattage, and blows out with a soft _pop_.

“Daaaan!” Johnny’s voice, swinging out from somewhere behind the cameras.

“Sorry! Sorry sorry sorry -”

Blaine rolls over onto his side and catches Kurt’s eye, small spark of schadenfreude glittering in the inconsistent light, and his grin widens when Kurt has to hide his giggles in the pillow. It’s weird, to be this close to Blaine this way, and mostly Kurt gets by by not thinking too much about it. 

Johnny finally sends Julianne off to bring the lighting master back from wherever he’s working with Marley and Charlie, and then sets them to rehearsing. Blaine swings a leg over Kurt under the covers and tries to look serious but every time he does Kurt remembers _“Daaan!”_ and Dan’s sputters when Kurt had shut him down, and can’t stop giggling.

“Oh, shut up,” Blaine says, the third time Kurt needs to take a too-deep breath before he can get his face straight and the line out. He leans his weight on Kurt’s arms, but that just _tickles_ and Kurt squirms, and smacks Blaine in the side when he just leans harder.

“Okay, one more time, guys, and then we’ll roll it.”

Dave. Brian. Right. He can do this. Kurt takes a breath and really tries this time, lets himself sink to that odd half-consciousness where Dave is _right there,_ just waiting to slip into his body, and there - there - Blaine’s face shifts, as though Kurt’s eyes are changing focus, and he’s Brian, sliding a gentle hand into his hair and leaning down to whisper in Dave’s ear.

Dave’s neck arches back, the soft sibilation of breath across his throat, and he crooks his knee to drag his leg over Brian; his arms are pinned but anything to draw him closer -

The body over him suddenly rears up. “Holy _shit_ Kurt your feet are _freezing._ ”

“Sorry!” Kurt yelps, and tries to snatch his foot back but their legs are too tangled and Blaine loses it entirely. He collapses onto the pillow next to Kurt, his shoulders vibrating with laughter, and really, that’s it.

Every time either of them starts to get a hold of themselves all it takes is a snicker from Blaine or Kurt’s wide-eyed impression of Blaine’s startled face before they’re gone again, and after a while even Johnny gives up trying to get them back on track until they’ve finally giggled themselves out and are just lying limp and smiling.

Blaine is flushed and happy-eyed when the cameras do start rolling, and when it’s his line he leans down and whispers, so softly, in Kurt’s ear: “Tonight, I am getting you ski socks.”

Kurt hooks his arm around Blaine’s neck, and breathes back the laughter, and lets Dave smile wide and bright.

The next morning there is a three-pack of thick wool socks on Kurt’s chair in their trailer. Kurt puts on a pair under his boots, over Anita’s protestations, and takes his mocha from Blaine with a raised eyebrow when he finally walks in.

“Toasty enough?”

“Shut up.”

“No, really, I hear those, uh, North African nights could be, um, cold -”

“Shut _up_.”

“And they’d send extra winter clothing from, you know, _Russia -_ ”

Blaine is laughing when Kurt smacks him in the arm with another pair of the socks on his way to the door.

“Thank you!” Kurt shouts, as the door is swinging shut behind him.

*

“Any big plans for the weekend?”

It’s the end of the day, and Kurt’s getting his makeup stripped off back in their trailer while Blaine wrestles with the laces of his boots, which he’s managed to tangle into impressive knots.

“Not really.” Mostly, what Kurt wants to do is sleep, but laundry is piling up and he has to call his dad and he’s not sure but he thinks he’s running out of food, so he’s going to have to do at least some chores this weekend. “You?”

“Actually, um.” Blaine’s cheeks are pink, and he’s biting his lip as he unpicks a tangle with his thumbnail. “I’ve got a date.”

“Really? Who with?” Kurt has to squint his eyes closed for a moment to keep the fumes from the makeup remover out of them.

“Jamie Spencer?” Kurt shakes his head. “He’s one of the researchers. He was at Marley’s party. Afterwards we got talking, and.” Blaine shrugs, a little shy, and Kurt hasn’t seen him like this, even when Blaine had asked him out. He’s not jealous, not, exactly, but -

“That sounds nice,” he says, not insincerely, and Blaine grins. This’ll be good for Blaine, something other than hookups, maybe, for once...

“Yeah - it is. It’s really nice.” Blaine smiles again, that soft-pleased smile that makes something in Kurt’s stomach grow warm.

“I’m glad.” Kurt meets his eyes in the mirror, and finds a smile for him, and surprises himself when he realizes he means it.

*

They’ll do exterior shots of the opera house when they’re in Algeria - apparently it’s still standing, or at least one that fits the description closely enough. For now, though, it’s just sets of the interior, but “just” doesn’t do it justice. The theatre is _huge_ , aged and battered but ornate and still beautiful, and when they walk in Kurt has to stop and tip his head back and up to stare.

“Wow.” Blaine stops at his side, wide-eyed and looking up at the glittering reproduction chandelier. “This is amazing.”

The whole ensemble’s on set today, and the atmosphere is light, excited, fun - it feels a little like a field trip, a new place to be, new things to do. The music director is there, organizing everyone and chivvying them into places, and Charlie is plunking out an arpeggio on a tinny piano, and forget field trip - it’s like glee club, energy and excitement and the thrill of impending performance.

The stage floor echoes, just a little, under his boots, the little hollow resonance that is so familiar, and Kurt bounces on his toes, and grins when Blaine catches his eye and beams, and feels like he’s come home.

*

_Coffee this weekend?_ Kurt texts Blaine Friday afternoon. They’ve hardly had the time, or the energy, during the week, and despite being together constantly at work there haven’t been many opportunities to relax.

He doesn’t get a reply until Sunday afternoon.

_God, Kurt, so sorry, just got this. Maybe sometime this week?_

It’s not just the work schedule. Kurt’s seen them together, Blaine and Jamie, and they make a good-looking couple, and Kurt really shouldn’t be jealous, but - He’s glad Blaine’s got somebody to make him happy; even gladder that it seems to be going well, someone to make dinners with and spend weekends with. Blaine’s a great guy. He deserves to be happy. But - but -

Blaine and Kurt had made dinner together. Blaine and Kurt had, almost, had a thing together. So why, now, when Blaine finally seems to be trying something that for once might actually be lasting, did he pick somebody else? What’s wrong with Kurt? Why didn’t it work with them?

It’s stupid and juvenile and Kurt still has lists and _lists_ of why getting involved with a coworker is a miserable idea, even if Jamie weren’t in the picture. But, but. He _misses_ Blaine, more than anything else, and what he hates most of all is that he misses an opportunity he knows he was never going to take.

_I’ll have my people talk to your people. Say Wednesday?_

Kurt’s phone buzzes again as he’s considering the flowerpots on the windowsill, wondering what will last the summer, what he should change out now that winter is coming to an end - winter as it would be considered in Ohio, at least.

_My people say Wednesday is great. See you at work tomorrow!_

_Bright and early._

Kurt starts researching succulents on his phone, and wonders if Anita would throw a fit if he brought in an aloe plant for their trailer.

*

It’s so late by the time they get out of work on Wednesday that even their regular coffee shop will be closed by the time they get there, and Kurt fights down the disappointment and just smiles and says, “I’ll bring something in tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll be there early,” Blaine promises, and hugs him when they separate in the parking lot. His jacket - February in L.A., way warmer than Ohio but still cool in the dark - carries traces of his aftershave, clean and spicy, that’s worn off the rest of him by this time of night.

Kurt knows he has the ingredients; it’s just a matter of dredging them out from the back of the pantry where they’ve settled, sediment of a lifestyle he’s too busy for right now. When Blaine makes it to their trailer, forty-five minutes earlier than their usual call, the whole place smells warm and bright and rich, and Blaine’s face lights when Kurt passes him a steaming mug.

“Finish that before Anita gets here, or she’ll skin you alive.”

“Oh, god, Kurt, that smells amazing.” Blaine takes a careful sip and regards him over the lip of his cup. “You’ve been holding out on me.”

“I had to make sure you were worthy of the Hummel Caffeine Expertise.”

“If I had known this was the reward, I’d have tried to get into your good graces sooner.”

“Mm.” Kurt takes his own mug and settles into his chair.

“What’s the secret ingredient?”

“Secret, Blaine,” Kurt says mildly, and sips. Blaine turns on the puppy-eyes.

“Oh, god, Blaine, don’t -”

He can’t help laughing; Blaine’s turned the wide-eyed pleading up to eleven, and Kurt is helpless against them.

“Fine, you win. Vanilla. And orange peel, if you can.”

“Vanilla and orange peel. Mmmmm.” Blaine closes his eyes, and takes another long sip.

After a moment his eyes blink back open. “Oh, I meant to tell you. I heard you doing that song for Dave the other day.”

Kurt’s eyebrows go up; he hadn’t known he’d hand an audience for that, and had been glad of it. It’s a raw song, sad and a little desperate, and not something that improves with company. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. It was - good.” Quiet, in the trailer, scent of coffee and citrus and calm. Blaine swallows. “Really good.”

Kurt smiles behind his mug, takes a sip. The warmth bleeds through to his fingers, comforting and familiar. “Thank you.”

*

Monday morning it’s Kurt’s turn to bring coffee, and as he waits in line, Monday morning commuter long, at the coffeeshop he snags a copy of _USA Today_ off the newstand and flips through it.

Sports, inane political coverage, entertainment...and - huh.

He _knows_ that face.

He shuffles forward in line and feels weirdly stalkerish, staring at this page, even though thousands of people will at least see this page (oh god, _thousands_ of people will see this page).

Underneath the picture is a caption: “ _Blaine Anderson, star of the new movie Letter to a G.I., currently in production..._ ”

It’s mostly about the new album Blaine’s slated to come out with that summer, and just a short blurb about the movie, And there is Blaine’s face, smiling and happy for the camera, and Kurt _knows_ him and his _picture is in the paper_ , holy fuck Kurt is in this movie with him. It’s weird and unexpected and really way too much to deal with before he’s even had coffee.

“Um. Sir?”

He’s not sure how long the barista has been trying to get his attention. He grimaces an apology at her and at the impatient businesswoman behind him, folds up the paper, and orders.

*

“Coffee and newspaper,” Kurt sings, setting Blaine’s cup down by his elbow and dropping the paper onto his keyboard. Blaine grabs the paper off his hand to finish a line, and then shakes it open with a curious look at Kurt.

“Page five A.” Kurt drops his bag next to his chair and sits down on a folded knee, free leg swinging.

“Oh, hey, look at that.” Blaine’s eyes move over the page, scanning the picture and then skimming the article. He looks up at Kurt with a frown. “They don’t say anything about you.”

“Well, of course not. They don’t _know_ me yet. That’s what a debut film is for.”

“Still. They should least acknowledge you.”

Kurt shrugs and stands, starts unlacing his shoes so he can change. “They will.”

“How can you -” Blaine’s voice trails off and Kurt looks up from his laces.

“What?”

“How are you so - sure about that?”

“That they’re going to acknowledge me - whoever ‘they’ are, those capricious judges of art and pop culture and film?”

Blaine’s staring at his laptop screen. “Yeah.”

Kurt crosses his foot over his knee so he can tug his shoe off. “Because I’m amazing, Blaine. Get with the program.”

Blaine chuckles, and Kurt goes on. “No, I mean, seriously. I’m good at this. So are you.” Blaine shrugs, still staring at his computer and toying with his mouse. “And it’s a good script and a great story and Johnny is amazing, and this project is going to be amazing. Come on,” Kurt stands on bare feet and takes the newspaper from Blaine’s unprotesting hands, and taps it off his curls. “Time to get a move on, drink your coffee, big scene today.”

Blaine’s face melts into a snort, and he bats away the paper. “Coming, mom, jeez,” and they’re laughing when Anita walks in, hangers dangling from her fingers, arms full of who they’re going to be for the day.

*

It is a big scene, and by mid-morning Kurt’s nerves have been shot near to hell from the strain of it. He’d seen one of the prop guys pass Blaine the little box and had tried not to let Dave see it, had wanted it to be for Dave the surprise that it should be. He’s never quite sure where the line between Kurt and Dave is but they seem to communicate in odd ways, Dave will know things he shouldn’t sometimes and other times Kurt knows something that he simply _can’t_ , it should be impossible, these are not his thoughts and this is not his brain, except that it apparently is.

So Dave doesn’t see he stays Kurt, except that Kurt is a moony-eyed fourteen-year-old romantic, and the surprise might be safe but its keeping leaves Kurt to watch Blaine cheerfully bounce between himself and Brian in rehearsals. It’s sweet, and charming, and distracting as hell, and when his imagination starts to run away from him he’s not sure if it’s Dave’s or his own. But the secret-keeping works, maybe, too well. When the cameras finally start to roll and Kurt slips towards Dave, Brian’s sweet, hopeful face make something flutter in his chest, and the sight of the ring in his hand sets his heart to a crazed triple-time. He can’t even hear the words he’s saying, just a hopeless buzz high in his ears over the smooth rolls of his voice, questions and assurances and promises while Dave stares at Brian’s hands cupping his, and then at his eyes.

Brian’s fingers are cool, and shaking a little, as they thread through Dave’s and raise his hand to press a kiss to his palm, and his breath is warm against his skin. Say, there’s something he should _say,_ as Brian slides smooth metal onto his finger, but words are shallow and can’t mean _this_ , quick-easy “yes” can’t mean what Brian’s eyes, deep and dark and hot, and his hands, cold and unsteady, mean, so he just holds Brian’s eyes and nods his _always, forever, and ever_ , while Brian clutches Dave’s hand in his, and brushes his cheek, and kisses him.

It’s soft and light and movie-chaste, but it sparks his body alight and his hands find Brian’s arms and he clings, he _loves_ this man, and this whole war, this life he never wanted, it’s all worth it, so worth it, to have _him_.

They break apart slowly, dazed and blinking and eyes only for each other, wide now with the knowledge of what they have, and what they can do.

And somewhere, distantly, someone calls “cut!”

Kurt blinks. His hand is still on Blaine’s arm. He lets it go. Blaine bounces on the balls of his feet, his cheeks still too-bright, and grins at him. It’s a strange grin, quick and sharp and tight. It’s not Brian but it’s nothing Blaine has ever worn before, either, and Kurt doesn’t know what to make of it. He doesn’t really have the brainpower to make anything of anything right now.

He crosses his arms over his chest, swings side to side while the cameras reset. Next to him, Julianne has a clipboard and a hand on Blaine’s shoulder. He’s nodding at something she’s saying. The back of his hand is pressed over his mouth.

Kurt looks down at his own hands, and slips off the ring. It’s gold. Plain. Utterly unremarkable. His heart is still beating in his ears, too much, too hard, too fast.

“Kurt?” Blaine’s voice, at his elbow, like his grin, strange and tight.

“You’ll need this.” Kurt takes Blaine’s surprised hand, puts the ring in his palm, curls his fingers around it.

“Ready!” Johnny’s voice, and nothing like enough time to process. Blaine looks like he doesn’t know what to say.

“Places!” Kurt shuffles forward, Blaine follows.

They begin, again.

*

The too-much too-fast too- _felt_ emotion of the day is wearing, and when they wrap for the afternoon Kurt slinks back to their trailer and curls up on the couch, fishes for a pillow to pull over his head, and closes his eyes to just take a moment to breathe, wired and drained and headachy.

After nothing like enough time, the door creaks open, and he can hear familiar footsteps. “Kurt? Are you - oh, there you are.”

Kurt squeezes his eyes shut and pulls the pillow down closer over his face. The dark, the quiet, is so nice...

“Are you okay?” Blaine’s voice is coming from somewhere close to his level now, and Kurt squints and peels back the pillow to see him crouched in front of him, a frown nipping in his eyebrows.

“‘m fine. Are you?”

Blaine nods, and puts out a hand to steady him as Kurt sways as he tries to sit up. “Yeah. Are you - sure you are?”

“Yeah.” Kurt curls his feet up under him, and covers his mouth as an enormous yawn tries to crack his jaw. “Just tired.” Now that he’s finally stopped and sat down, his body is letting him feel just exactly how tired he really is. He’s _exhausted_.

“Scootch over,” Blaine commands. Kurt covers another yawn and moves down the couch to make room for Blaine and tips back over to rest his head on his shoulder.

“Well. That was.” Kurt can feel the soothing hum of Blaine’s voice. “Intense.”

Kurt nods, lifts his head for a moment to smooth down Blaine’s collar where it’s folded under his cheek. “Told you we were awesome.”

Blaine’s laughter bubbles through his body, soft and tired, and Kurt feels a soft touch to his hair as his eyes drop closed. He falls asleep without even realizing he’s going to.

*

Kurt wakes again to dark and quiet, except for a soft tapping and a faint glow that resolves itself as the lit screen of a laptop as he blinks his eyes open and squints.

“Blaine?” his voice cracks on sleep, and he muffles another yawn as the typing stops.

“Hey. Kurt. How you doing, there?”

Kurt lifts his head from where it’s pillowed on the arm of the couch; he’s got a blanket tucked around his shoulders. “Mm. What time is it?”

“Just after nine. You haven’t been out that long,” Blaine says, as Kurt sits up, stretching stiff muscles.

“What are you still doing here?” Now that his eyes are adjusted, Kurt can see that Blaine’s out of uniform - costume - and is hunched over his laptop in just a t-shirt and jeans, his hair unslicked and tangled.

“Just getting some work done - if I went home I’d get distracted and not do anything.” Kurt snorts - he doesn’t even want to think about Jamie and what Blaine might be getting “distracted” with. “Plus, I didn’t want to leave you on your own here.”

“Could’ve woken me up.” Kurt stands, and starts looking around for his clothes.

“You really weren’t out that long. And you looked like you could use it.”

“What are you working on?” Kurt ducks behind the dividing screen shoved in the corner of the trailer to change. Old habit - the sparky too-much of the day is still in his skin, and he needs _something_ between him and the rest of the world.

“Just an arrangement of something I’ve been working on. Nothing really fancy.”

“Can I hear?”

“If you want.”

When Kurt re-emerges, feeling more himself now for the nap and for being back in his own clothes, Blaine digs a set of headphones from his bag - “Laptop speakers are crap, sorry” - and plugs them in for him.

It’s just whatever composition software Blaine’s using, not a real recording, so the notes are tinny and electronic but the melody is sweet and light and there’s a strong backing bass, slow and measured and steady.

“That’s really pretty,” Kurt takes off the headphones when the clip is done playing, and Blaine gives him a closed-lip smile and carefully winds the cord back around them. “No, really. Where did you learn to compose?”

Blaine shrugs and leans over to tuck the headphones away again. “Back in high school, actually. I don’t know if you remember, but the Warblers were an acapella group.” Kurt nods. “We had to do a lot of our own arrangements. We had an advisor who could do a lot of it, but she made sure we learned how, if we wanted to.”

“Wow, an actual musically-functioning high school choir?”

“I know, right? One of the perks of a private school, I guess. I’m glad the opportunity was there - it was a lot of fun, and, well. It was something I wanted to do.”

“Did you want to go into music when you were a kid?”

“I wanted to do _everything_.” Blaine’s smile is self-deprecating as he saves what he’s working on and closes the laptop. “Still do, I guess. This is just where and what I’m doing now.”

“Yes, clearly you’re struggling for achievement,” Kurt deadpans. Blaine shrugs, and plays with the catch on his computer, and doesn’t say anything. Kurt’s foot flicks irritably.

The silence is awkward, and a little heavy. After a minute Kurt caves and breaks it.

“Do you want to catch a ride together to the airport?” Shocking that it’s come so fast, that over a month has gone by already, but they’re heading to Algeria in just a few days. Even thinking about everything he’ll have to pack makes Kurt tired.

“Um. Actually. I’m leaving a few days later than you guys.”

“What? Why?” Kurt frowns, and sits up straighter.

“I’ve got a, uh, meeting for a project. A couple of them.”

“A couple of projects?

“A couple of meetings,” Blaine smiles. “Don’t worry, it’s just a few days.”

“When will you get there, then?”

Blaine digs his phone out and flips through it. “The tenth. In the afternoon.” He squints, and scrolls down a page. “Afternoon here, at least. What’s the time difference to Algeria, anyway?”

“I’m not sure. Eight hours? Nine?”

“Wednesday night, then.” Blaine slips his phone back in his pocket.

Kurt slides down in his chair. “What am I supposed to do alone in Oran for three days?”

“Gee, I don’t know, Kurt. Work? Sightsee? Have a fling with a nice local boy?”

Kurt rolls his eyes, and kicks at Blaine’s leg under the table. “Blaine.”

“I think Dan’s going, too, I’m sure he’d be willing...”

“Shut up,” Kurt huffs, and kicks again, but Blaine is laughing and kicking back and the weird mood from just a minute ago is, thankfully, gone.

“So.” Kurt stands up, finds his bag and shoulders it. “I guess this is it til Wednesday.”

“Yeah. Take care of yourself til then, Kurt.” Blaine stands, and folds him into a hug. “Safe travels.”

“You too.” Kurt squeezes back. Blaine smells like spice, and citrus.

*

_Part 3a posting on Saturday, February 23rd._


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note going forward. I have a complicated relationship with warnings and triggers on stories on the internet, and I’ve struggled over whether things in this story should be warned for. G.I. doesn’t deal with “death” in what I would consider the standard character-death style. But mortality is a theme, in a literary way. There are even recurring symbols and motifs and shit. (Gold star if you can figure out what they are!) Kurt’s character in this movie does die, as implied in the original letter. Kurt and Blaine both have thoughts and feelings about that. If that’s not something you want to touch with a ten-foot pole, that is totally fine. Consider yourself warned :)
> 
> Special thanks for this part go to wordplay, who dosed me with caffeine, Chris Colfer, and Rufus Wainwright while I was writing the first draft of it, which is a hell of a combination on the creative lobes.

Wednesday morning, like the two mornings before, it takes Kurt a long moment to remember where he is.

But there’s sun peeking around the corner of his blinds, and the curtains are rippling in a soft warm breeze, and unfamiliar street noise drifting up from below. Oran. Right.

Algeria is the strangest place in the _world._

It’s not, really, Kurt is sure; there are far stranger and more exotic places around the globe. But he’s never been to those places, and he is in Algeria right now, feeling lost and disoriented and still lingeringly jetlagged, but worst of all, alone. He gropes for his phone, hoping to give himself another ten minutes of lying in bed with minimal consciousness, when it buzzes in his hand.

_In Paris now. I think?_

Kurt smiles, and rolls onto his back to reply. _You *think,*_ Mr. Anderson?

_After a while all the airports start looking alike._

_Well aren’t you just the world traveler._

_It’s weird being here without you._

And, a moment later, another. _I miss you :(_

At that, Kurt has to stop and hold the phone - literally - for a moment while he stares at the ceiling and makes himself breathe.The last two days have been filled with messages like that, that make Kurt’s fingers stutter on the phone and his heart race unfairly. He’s not sure how Blaine means them; little notes that might be friendly but also might be flirty. He’s not even sure how he wants Blaine to mean them.

That, actually, is a complete lie. Kurt leaves his phone on the nightstand - he’ll reply to that message, once he’s awake and feeling more human and less susceptible to the tug of undefined sweetness - and drags himself out of bed and toward the shower. He knows exactly how he wants Blaine to mean it, but Blaine isn’t interested in romance - at least not with Kurt. Blaine and Jamie, however, seem to be getting along just fine. The first night in country, wretched with jetlag and exhaustion, Kurt had bitterly considered calling Blaine. To say what, to do, what, he wasn’t sure, but it was with a kind of detached horror that Kurt realized he was actually dialing Blaine’s number.

It rang, and rang, and rang. Finally, right before it had gone to voicemail, the line had clicked open.

“Hello?” Blaine’s voice was raspy, tired, and Kurt had looked at his watch - still set to PST - and grimaced. Hello?” Blaine said again, when Kurt didn’t answer right away.

“Sorry - Blaine?”

“Kurt?” A pause. “Are you okay?”

Kurt had swallowed hard, had closed his eyes against the sudden sting. “Sorry - pocket dial. Talk to you later.”

“Kurt - bye - ”

The line had clicked silent, then, and Kurt had been left alone with his thoughts, and his phone.

In the bathroom Kurt tips his head back under the water and tries to let the hot spray distract him, soothe his worries away. He’s not jealous. Kurt Hummel is not the kind of boy to want something just because he can’t have it. He’s really, really not. It’s not that.

It’s that Algeria is a big, foreign country, and Oran is a big foreign city, and outside of his hotel room Kurt feels the weight of the size of the world pressing down on him, all the miles separating him from everything he’s familiar with. He misses Blaine more than he ever could have expected, and more than he really should.

At least there is no war. Kurt towels his hair off roughly - it’ll get styled, trench-messy, soon enough - and walks back out into his room, to find shorts and a t-shirt for breakfast and the quick walk to the trailers. On his way out the door he scoops his phone off the nightstand, and thumbs it to life. Life wisdom from Burt Hummel: Honesty is the best policy.

_I miss you too._

*

It’s a long day. A _really_ long day. It’s got nothing to do with the material, which are filler scenes, really; Dave on location, in pretty spots around the city, little notes for flavor more than substance, to ground the film in atmosphere and in a real physical place. By the time they wrap for the day (early, by comparison to the hours they’ll be pulling in just a few days)Kurt’s tired and hot and dusty and desperately needs another shower. Pat - Anita’s not here; they really are working with a skeleton crew - brushes her hair out of her eyes and sighs as she takes his folded costume.

“Would it kill you not to sweat, Hummel?”

Kurt grins tiredly and pulls on his sneakers. “I tried, I really did.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Pat dusts off some of the dirt (the real dirt, not the fake stuff, and Kurt doesn’t blame her for not wanting to re-wash and re-(fake)-dirty more pieces than she has to.) “Go on, get dinner, Johnny’s talking about a five a.m. call tomorrow.”

“I think I liked it better when he didn’t live five minutes away from all of us. Or control our visas.”

“You and me both. Hey, isn’t your partner-in-crime coming in tonight?”

Kurt focuses on wiggling the tongue of his shoe - welcomingly light and cool after the heavy combat boots he’s had on all day - until it sits comfortably “Yeah. Sometime tonight - he said he’d text when he landed, I’m supposed to meet him - somewhere.” Kurt finds his phone in his shorts pocket. “Yeah. Around nine.”

“Well, you have fun with that. I’m getting these down to the laundry and then going to sleep for twelve hours.”

“You’ll never adjust to the time zone unless you push through it!”

Pat juggles the armload of costumes to free a hand to let him know what she thinks of that suggestion. Kurt laughs, and drags himself down to dinner.

Blaine texts him as he’s sitting down with something that actually resembles a salad, just a quick _landed!_ By the time Kurt’s done eating and is heading back out to the street, night has fallen and his phone is buzzing constantly with increasingly-manic updates from Blaine.

_Getting a cab. 30 minute eta?_

_I am never ever insulting L.A. traffic again_

_This driver is *magic.*_

_This driver is not going where the GPS is telling me he should be going. Where am I?_

_Kurt, when you came in did you see the opera house? Oh my *god* it’s beautiful._

Kurt smiles as he makes his way down the sidewalk, and only replies to the last text. _I did. It is. :)_

Then, radio silence for a few minutes, as Kurt paces the sidewalk in front of the hotel and watches traffic stream past. The sudden quiet is a little unnerving, and as the moments tick by Kurt watches the passing cars, the distant figures on foot, more and more closely.

“Kurt!”

The call, when it comes, comes from behind him, not the direction he’d expected. Blaine is halfway down the sidewalk, suitcase and backpack in hand. There’s an itch, somewhere under Kurt’s ribs, to run to him, gather him up in his arms and hold him until neither of them feel lost and misplaced, but he swallows it down and stands there instead.

He can’t help the smile, though, as Blaine comes into his pool of streetlight. He looks exhausted and travel-worn and _such_ a sight for sore eyes. When Blaine drops his suitcase on the sidewalk and pulls Kurt into a rib-squeaking hug he doesn’t fight it, just laughs and wraps his arms around Blaine’s shoulders until Blaine lets go again.

“Well,” Blaine says, and settles his backpack more comfortably on his shoulders. “The Warbler has landed.”

Kurt laughs again, and grabs Blaine’s suitcase up off the sidewalk. “How was your flight? Flights?”

“ _Long._ I cannot wait to take a shower and sleep in a real bed.”

“Well, you better move fast. Johnny has us scheduled for five tomorrow.”

“...Five in the morning?”

“Mhmm.” Kurt holds the door for Blaine, and then drags the suitcase towards the reception desk.

“The man is a lunatic.”

“This is what you get for coming late so you could work on your _projects_.”

“They’re important projects! Sorry. Checking in - Anderson?” Blaine turns his attention to the receptionist. Kurt waits a step behind him and rocks on his heels and fidgets with the handle of Blaine’s suitcase until he turns again, room key in hand. “Alright,” Blaine says, and squares his shoulders. “Show me where I can go pass out for the night.”

Kurt smiles over his shoulder, and pulls the suitcase towards the elevator over Blaine’s protestations. “Follow me, sir.”

Kurt lingers longer in Blaine’s room than he’d meant to. It’s good to have a familiar face and voice to sit and talk with with no external pressure or worry or schedule, and Blaine seems in no hurry to have him go, either. When Kurt finally does make himself stand up to leave Blaine covers a yawn and walks him to the door, where he leans on the frame and waves as Kurt walks down the hall to his own room.

“Want me to bring coffee in the morning?” Kurt gets his door unlocked and pauses with his hand on the doorknob.

“ _God_ yes, you’re an angel.”

“Four thirty sharp, I’ll give you the grand tour.”

“You are less of an angel.”

Kurt smiles as Blaine stiles another yawn. “Hey now. Who’s bringing you coffee?”

“Angel. Definitely angel. G’night, Kurt.”

“Goodnight. Sleep well.”

“You too.” Blaine’s door clicks closed, and Kurt pulls his own door open, and then closed behind him.

*

It’s hardly enough sleep, but when Kurt’s alarm goes off the next morning he actually feels rested and ready to face the day. The noise drifting up from the street seems less alien, the dark at this hour less cold and complete. Showered and dressed and with coffee in hand, he knocks on Blaine’s door at four twenty-nine. Sounds of muttering and rustling come from within, and then a muffled “just a sec!”

Blaine answers the door in a t-shirt and pajama pants, yawning behind a hand and looking rather less energetic than Kurt feels.

“ _Thank you,_ ” he breathes when Kurt hands him his cup, sinking down on the edge of his unmade bed and clutching the coffee close.

“How’d you sleep?”

Blaine shrugs, and squints open an eye. “Alright. Not long enough. We really have a meeting this early?”He closes his eyes and takes a deep sip of coffee.

“No, I decided to wake up this early just to mess with you.”

“And here I thought you missed me.” Blaine opens both eyes to grin at him.

“You, yes. Getting up before the sun, no. Come on, up and at ‘em, the sooner we get down there the sooner this meeting is over.” Kurt tips his head toward the door, and Blaine grumbles, but gets up to follow.

“You’re not going to get dressed first?” Kurt asks, when Blaine steps out into the hallway and pulls the door shut behind him.

“Hmm? Oh.” Blaine looks down at himself, at the plaid flannel pants and UCLA t-shirt. “No,” he decides. “It’s early enough, it still counts as sleep time..”

“...Okay,” Kurt says, and is proud of his voice for not betraying how dry his mouth is as he watches Blaine walk down the stairs, and the strip of skin that appears between his shirt and his low-slung pants when he reaches for the banister.

Blaine in pajamas is nothing he hasn’t seen before. Blaine’s skin is nothing he hasn’t seen before, either. But that’s been late evenings in their trailers, scripted scenes on set, moments that are already private or planned. Walking through the lobby of a hotel in Oran, though, on the way to a production meeting, is something entirely different, making something personal almost unbearably public. Or Blaine’s transforming something public into something private.

Either way, it’s nothing Kurt has ever done. But there’s a lot that Blaine would do that Kurt would not.

*

The meeting is in one of the hotel’s conference rooms, and it’s a mark of just how skeleton a crew is here that everyone actually fits into it. There’s no one either Kurt or Blaine know very well, aside from Johnny and Pat. Everyone’s spent the past few days just unpacking equipment and getting things up to speed, but now that Blaine’s here and the last shipment of sound equipment made it through customs it’s going to be full steam ahead for the next week and a half.

Schedules are passed out, and updated scripts, and itineraries and phone numbers and maps. With Blaine in the seat next to him, scribbling notes and asking questions as he slowly comes awake, everything seems much less daunting and much more exciting. If the list of locations they’re going to be driving to over the next day and a half (so many driving scenes, and for even a few minutes of film they’re going to need hours and hours and _hours_ of footage) is insane, well - Blaine catches his eye as Johnny takes a digression into wildlife preservation and film production out on the plain, and grins with growing excitement - at least he won’t be alone.

Once the meeting’s over there’s a few minutes before they have to get dressed and ready to get out to the location for the day, so Kurt leads Blaine on a walk around the hotel, their mini-base, their home away from home: the conference rooms that have been claimed for meetings; the parking lot that’s been taken over with trailers.

“This is my favorite, though,” Kurt says, leading Blaine back up the stairs that lead to the upper-floor balconies that wrap all the way around the building. There are interior hallways, too, but Kurt likes to use the balconies, with their birds-eye view of the streets and the sturdy, weathered patio chairs scattered around. “Because from here, you can see - “ he takes them around the corner to the front of the hotel, the side both their rooms face. It had been dark last night when Blaine got in, and dark this morning when they’d gotten up, but now -

“The sea,” Blaine breathes next to him, and leans against the railing, hands curling and tapping on the wrought iron.

“Yeah.”

It’s a cool, bright morning, and the water is a rich blue band across the horizon. When the traffic slows below, they can hear the waves.

“Can you see the beach from here?”

“Kind of.” Kurt grasps the railing and steps up on the bottom rung, like the four extra inches of height will really help. “See that cliff there? The hill-thing?” he points to a dark shape on the edge of the water.

Blaine squints. “Yeah, I think so.”

“It’s on the other side of that.” Kurt swings his hand down to hold the railing in both hands, and rocks his feet on their rung.

“Have you been there yet?”

“No.” Kurt lets his feet slide back onto the concrete. “Some of the guys went down yesterday - was it yesterday?” The days are already blurring together. “Anyway, they went down to check out the location, see about laying down track or something like that, but.” He shrugs, and picks at a flake of rust. “I didn’t feel like going.” It’s loomed there, the beach, in his mind, ever since they’ve set up shop here, everything it is an everything it represents, for the story and for _them_ , for Brian and Dave.

“Why not?”

Kurt turns to look at Blaine, who’s looking mildly back at him. “I didn’t want to without Brian.”

A smile, small but deeply pleased, grows on Blaine’s face.

“What?”

“That’s _adorable._ ”

“Blaine!” Kurt can’t help it, the blush crawling up his throat.

“What, seriously, that is adorable.” Blaine tilts his head and looks at him more closely. “What are you so embarrassed about?”

Kurt makes himself not scuff at a pit in the concrete with the toe of his shoe. He’ll ruin the sole. “It’s stupid and romantic,” he finally shrugs. “You weren’t supposed to make fun of me for it.”

“Kurt. I am _not_ making fun. It _is_ romantic - and really, really sweet.” Something about Blaine’s smile turns shy. “I’m glad you waited, actually. Thank you.”

Kurt squirms his shoulders, still a little embarrassed, but pleased nonetheless. “Of course. ”

Blaine turns to look back out at the cliff that marks the western arm of the cove that forms the beach. _Their_ beach. Kurt watches Blaine for a moment, and then asks -

“We’re not scheduled to film there til next week, but - do you want to walk down there tonight or tomorrow?”

“I’d love that.” Blaine’s smile is bright.

In his pocket, Kurt’s phone chirps an alarm - time to go. Kurt leads the way back to the stairs. “We’ll see how much we feel like it after spending two days in the car.”

“Aw, come on, it’s not going to be bad.” Blaine’s sandals scuff happily on the steps behind Kurt. “The countryside is supposed to be beautiful.”

Kurt looks over his shoulder and smirks at Blaine. “We’ll see.”

*

The countryside _is_ beautiful.

And strange.

And _big._

Next to him in the back of the truck, Blaine is trying to track their location on his phone - Kurt’s used to the incongruity between Brian’s period fatigues and Blaine’s iPhone, though it never really stops being amusing - but Kurt long ago lost track. The plain is _huge_ , miles upon miles of grassland and hills and roads that trail off eternally into the pale hazy air, and beyond them to the north, is the sea...

*

Dave sits in the driver’s seat and picks at the corner of the envelope he has rested on the steering wheel.

“Are you ever going to open that?” Brian asks quietly from the passenger seat.

Dave turns the letter over in his hands, considering. “Yes,” he finally says. “But maybe not now.”

Brian shifts to face him better. “Why not?”

Dave flicks the corner of the envelope, the return address written in neat copperplate script, and taps it off the steering wheel. “Because it’s one of three things. Either it’s good news, in which case I want to savor the anticipation. Or else it’s bad news, and I don’t ever want to know. Or else it’s - crap. What’s the third one?”

“There’s a logical progression, you know.”

“Oh, shut up.” Kurt pushes at Blaine’s shoulder.

“Or else it’s nothing, meaningless trivia from a meaningless existence I don’t even miss anymore.” The AD’s voice is a strangely emotionless drone, devoid of feeling. Movies are .

“Thanks, Amelia.” Kurt flicks the envelope around in his hands. “It might be good news - and I want to savor the anticipation of that. Or maybe it’s bad news, and the longer I go without opening it the longer it’s not real. Or else it’s nothing, meaningless trivial from a meaningless existence I don’t even miss anymore.”

“Good, cut.”

Kurt leans back in the seat, flicks his eyes up at no one in particular. “Dave’s a melodramatic twerp, isn’t he.”

“I thought he was romantic.” Blaine hugs one of his knees to his chest, stretching out legs stiff from sitting for so long.

“He _is_. But...god.”

Blaine rolls his shoulders before he settles back into place. “See if Johnny doesn’t mind you doing something different.”

Kurt cranes his head around. “Johnny?”

“Go for it, kid.”

“Alright. Lead me in?”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s one of three things. Either it’s bad news, which I don’t want, or good news, which I want to savor, or it’s neither, and all the worry and anticipation is pointless - and there’s another three weeks to get through before I get another letter, and it starts up all over again.”

Brian gives him a skeptical side-eye. “You’re a very strange person.”

The laughter bubbles up before Dave can help it. “Strange, maybe. But interesting?”

“Oh, yes.” There’s a spark of mischief in Brian’s eyes and Dave thinks about it, what they could do out here, in the middle of nowhere; all the ways they could explore all the things Brian thinks is _interesting_ about him. He lets his hand drift from the wheel to Brian’s hand, where it’s resting in his lap.

But Brian’s content to just sit with him for now, apparently, and leans his head onto Dave’s shoulder. “Did anything else come today?”

“Mhmm.” Dave brushes his fingers over Brian’s hand. “I got a letter from Susan, complaining that the church choir just _isn’t_ the same without me playing, and can’t the president end this war so all the good boys can come home again?”

Brian chuckles softly. “That sounds like Susan.”

“Yes. You should meet her, when we -” Dave hesitates. In spite of, or maybe because of, everything they’ve done and seen together, he can’t bring himself to presume. Or assume. “She’d like you,” he finally says, and squeezes Brian’s fingers.

“Mm. I’d like to meet her. And what about Margaret?”

“Oh, yes, I’d forgotten. Maggie hasn’t heard from Ron in _two whole weeks_ and what if he doesn’t _like_ me, Davey, what if he has another sweetheart on the side, I know what you army boys are like -”

“Army boys, hmm?” Brian smiles up at Dave, and nestles his head closer.

“My sister, eternally paranoid. I don’t know why she worries so much, though, Ron’s never been a good writer.”

Brian shrugs, the movement loose and comfortable at his side. “I can’t blame her. I’d worry, if you were off somewhere else, charming everyone every night with your voice and your playing...” he slides his fingers up and down Dave’s, stroking slowly, and gently twists his ring on Dave’s finger with a thumb.

“I would actually write to you, though. If we were apart.” The thought - of being apart, of not being _together,_ clenches something painful in his chest. As short a time as they have been together, Dave can’t imagine life any other way now, without Brian at his side.

“And I would write to you.” Brian’s voice is soft, his hands gentle and promising.

“Cut, okay, good, one more time you guys -”

Blaine sits up again and Kurt rolls his shoulders; these seats are _not_ comfortable. He checks Blaine’s wristwatch, and then the sun - they’ve got a few minutes left to get this, but just a few.

Johnny seems to share his assessment, chivvying the camera back into place, checking the light levels. “Okay, from ‘I would actually -’”

“I would actually write you, though. If we were apart.”

“I’m sure you would.” Dave hadn’t meant it as a tease, but that’s how Brian’s taking it, shifting in his seat to get a better angle as his hands slip into Dave’s hair, and _oh_ Dave loves him. “And _I_ would write to you.”

“Good, again...”

“I’d actually write to you, if we’re ever apart.”

Brian’s eyes are dark and earnest, his hand sliding over Dave’s shoulder to tug him closer. “And I’ll write to you.” Brian comes up onto his knees for the kiss, and it feels like a promise.

*

Late Friday night Kurt’s out on the balcony, watching the dark sky and the glittering city below, when a sliding door scrapes open, and Blaine steps out of his room.

“Hey there.”

“Hey, Kurt.” Blaine ignores the chair next to Kurt’s and just sits down on the floor, leaning forward and looking out at the lights. For a long while he’s quiet, and Kurt lets himself sink into the silence and just enjoy it, the calm at the end of a long day.

The quiet goes on so long, in fact, that Kurt starts to wonder if Blaine’s fallen asleep when he finally shifts upright. “It really is an amazing city, isn’t it.”

“Mmm. Yes. I can’t wait to show my dad the pictures - he won’t believe it. Carole’s been trying to get him to go to the Mediterranean for _years._

“How’s he doing, with you away?”

Kurt shrugs. “I’ve been away from home since I graduated high school. It’s not like Dad and Carole aren’t used to the empty nest - but being out on location does give him the excuse to worry more. He’s been demanding daily email updates.”

Blaine chuckles.

“What about you?” Kurt asks. “How’s Jamie holding up on his own?”

Blaine’s glance flicks from the skyline to Kurt, a flash of - something, bright behind them. “He’s good. Julianne has the rest of the crew doing set rebuilding. But he and I, we - we’re - not. Together anymore.”

Kurt’s hand curls around the arm of his chair. “Oh, Blaine. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Blaine shakes his head. “I mean, thank you, but. It was good, while it lasted. And it’s good that it’s over. It was - I think it was what I needed.”

“What do you mean?” Kurt watches Blaine’s bowed head, and his fingers itch to touch his hair. He picks at a splinter in the arm of the chair instead.

“A real relationship. Even not a long one. Just - a real one. Not just another fling.” There’s a twist of bitterness to his mouth, and Kurt’s stomach clenches in guilt.

“Blaine, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply, or - judge, or -”

Blaine shakes his head. “No, you were right. I’m glad you said something, I - don’t know if I would have done something like that on my own. And I’m really glad that I did. So. Thank you, I suppose.” He grins up at Kurt, and Kurt still feels like he should apologize; he’s a bitch when he’s been drinking, he of all people should not be passing judgment on other people’s relationships... But Blaine doesn’t look upset, not at all, just happy and, for once, quiet. He doesn’t look away, and as the moment extends Kurt feels it sliding, the mood slipping into something darker, more intense. More intent.

He manages to fund his voice again. “So it wasn’t just another fling?”

Blaine shakes his head.

“But it was so - short.” Kurt knows he should, but there’s a part of him, somewhere, that just can’t let that idea go. Romance is slow burns and commitment and years and years together, testing each other, trying each other out, making sure the long haul is bearable, every step considered and planned. Not weeks-long affairs.

Blaine rolls onto his side, rests his cheek on his crooked elbow. “It was more than a month. Besides, romance isn’t always about longevity. At least not according to Brian and Dave.” He smiles, and the lights from the street below glint in his eyes.

“Oh, yes, all very well and good for the _fictional movie characters_.” Kurt smiles to soften the roll of his eyes.

“Movie characters, Kurt. They’re still real. Or at least they were.”

Kurt slides his eyes away from Blaine’s and picks at the splinter again. He forgets that, sometimes. He spends so much time either as Dave, as he exists in Kurt’s head and on film, or thinking about him, trying so desperately to figure him out and slip Dave into Kurt’s skin that he forgets that Dave and Brian were _real,_ like he is real. Like Blaine is real.

Oran, at night, city lights and the sound of the distant sea. They were here. Kurt breathes deep. They had been here, and real, and nothing anyone could ever replicate. He feels small in the massive dark, untethered above the woven streets, like if he breathes out and lets his focus go he might vanish into eighty years ago.

“Besides,” Blaine says, and Kurt is jolted back into himself, he is _himself_ and not Dave, and always will be. The rest is just pretend. “It was good, being with Jamie. It was nice to have somebody to come home to. I just don’t know if he’s the one I want to come home to.”

Kurt lets the splinter go, and looks at Blaine again. Blaine, on his side on the balcony in the dark of an Oran night, looks back.

The look, and the silence, stretches, and in the odd mood there is a zen, there would be a zen, if there were not strange zinging sparks snapping at the edges of it. Kurt feels like himself, too much like himself, and so very aware of Blaine, and _his_ self.

He nudges Blaine’s foot with the toe of his shoe. “We’ve got an early call tomorrow. Want me to bring you coffee?”

Blaine’s smile comes happy and so very real. “That would be amazing.”

“I’ll see you in the morning then.”

Blaine doesn’t make any move to follow him, just watches, and waves from his side when Kurt looks over his shoulder.

“Goodnight, Kurt.”

He waits in the doorway, just for a minute, to wave back, just a quick curl of his fingers. “Sleep well.”

*

Up, early, again; coffee and quiet chatter in the car while the sun rises outside and the world outside glows from gray to gold.

There is a picnic that lasts all day; there is blue sky and warm sun and a hand to hold; annoyance and fun furtive glances at interruptions and then alone, again; a drive back home and Blaine gets a pun in his head and _won’t let it go_ , and Kurt’s nearly crying with laughter by the time they’re back for dinner, the sun swinging low in the sky again.

*

Later that night, Kurt can’t get Dave and Brian and Blaine’s gentle chiding out of his head: _they’re still real._ He doesn’t know much about history in general, and just a little of military history in particular, thanks to Finn’s brief stint going on ten years ago now. There are many areas in which Kurt prides himself on his knowledge, but this is not one of them.

He considers the novel - nearly worn to pieces now, it’s been carried around so many places, but beloved as it is that’s still not _real,_ there is still that level of fiction between Kurt and what he wants to know. So after dinner he emails Jamie (a little awkward to do now, maybe, but if Kurt is going to be a professional about this whole situation then he is damn well going to be a professional), asks for information - he doesn’t know what to ask for, exactly, doesn’t know what he doesn’t know, so he just asks for anything, everything, about the world Dave lived in.

He’s just hit “send” when there’s a knock at his door - the slider to the balcony, not the interior door.

Blaine is there, framed by the lights, hands in his pockets. “Hey,” he says. “Do you want to take that walk down to the beach?”

Kurt looks at Blaine, and looks at the dark. “Now?”

Blaine smiles. “Yes now.”

“But it’s dark.”

“It’ll be romantic. Come on. The beach, the sky at night - just like Bri and Dave saw it. No camera crews around calling the shots.”

Kurt leans his cheek against the doorframe and smirks. “Romantic, huh?”

“You know what I mean. You in?”

Kurt’s not sure he does, and doesn’t know why that thought doesn’t scare him more. “You’re sure you know how to get there?”

“Scout’s honor.” Blaine waves his phone, a map already on the screen. “It’s not far.”

“Let me get a sweater.”

*

It’s warm in the city, but Kut’s glad for the sweater as soon as they get within easy sight of the waves. It’s as though the world suddenly opens up, or fades away, as they round the head of the peninsula and step onto the beach; the lights disappear behind them and ahead is nothing but ocean and sky, dark like the soul of silence.

“Wow,” Blaine says next to him, stopping as Kurt had, instinctively, to look out at the vastness.

“Mmm.”

There’s nothing else to say to that - no comment Kurt can make about the beach - _this_ beach, sand pale and milky stretching down to rustling blackness - that can make it any more real. He feels profound, his whole self deep and wide and hushed. Blaine must feel it as well; at least he, too, is quiet as they pick their way down the path to the sand, to where the endless roar of the surf resolves itself into the gasps and hissings of distinct waves.

There is nothing to say; so they sit, cross-legged on on the sand, until the chill of the ground starts to seep into Kurt’s legs and the great hush in his mind quiets itself, settles itself into something more manageable. This will never be _just_ a beach, but it can be a place where Kurt can think and speak and work, and that is good.

So he lets his mind wander; he counts the waves rolling in and then times how long it takes them to slip back down the sand; he finds pictures in the scattered patterns of pebbles and tries to find constellations he knows. Next to him, Blaine - Blaine who can’t sit still _and_ silent for ten minutes at a time - says nothing and doesn’t move. Kurt looks over after he finally locates (he thinks?) Orion, and Blaine’s face is drawn, his eyes unhappy and far away.

“Hey,” Kurt says, and bumps his shoulder. His voice is small but so distinct after the long silence, and he waits until Blaine blinks and turns to face him to ask, “Are you okay?”

Blaine looks like he’s considering the question, or considering Kurt. Then he shakes his head.

“What’s wrong?”

Blaine shakes his head again, and quirks a smile, rueful, now. “It’s nothing.”

“Blaine.”

“No, really, it’s just -” he looks away from Kurt, out at the water, and sighs. “I think it’s just being away on location. It’s starting to get to me.”

“What do you mean?”

Blaine shrugs a shoulder. “All the driving and traveling around. I know at least we’re staying in the same place every night, but it feels like we never stay _still._ ” He shrugs again. “I just feel - I don’t know. Like with all the travel I’m losing myself - like I can’t keep up with myself.”

“Like it’s too much to take in, so you kind of drift outside of everything, even yourself?”

Blaine nods. “Yeah.” Then he smiles, a little, faint but real. “You too, then?”

Kurt nods. “Pretty much since I got off the plane.” He swallows, considers, and then decides to go for it - Blaine’s been so open so far. “It got better once you got here, though.”

Blaine’s smile twitches up a notch, and Kurt feels the return smile on his own face, unbidden. “Yeah. I think I’d have gone crazy days ago if you weren’t here.”

“You’re already crazy,” Kurt says, and Blaine’s smile brightens into a grin before his face goes thoughtful again.

“I wonder how they did it - Dave and Brian. I mean, as much as I have been going crazy. More crazy,” he amends, at Kurt’s raised eyebrow. “I do know we’re going home in a couple of weeks. And no one’s shooting at me. How did they not just - disappear? Into everything?”

Kurt dips his fingertips into the sand - cool smooth grains - and watches his hand, and not Blaine’s face, when he says. “They had each other.”

He expects a pause, a hesitation; he expects silence before Blaine responds. But Blaine says “yeah,” and when Kurt looks up again Blaine’s watching him. The sand in his fingers is gritty.

Blaine asks, “Want to walk some more?”

“Sure.” Kurt stands, and dusts his hands off on his pants.

They kick their way down to the edge of the water, where the sand is wet and firm. Blaine, in sandals, wanders further out, and teases Kurt about his reluctance to get his feet wet - until a breaker sweeps up past the waterline and soaks Kurt’s shoes anyway. Kurt can’t help the shriek - it’s _cold_ \- but he stands with his fists on his hips and glares as Blaine laughs.

“This is not funny!”

“You should have seen your _face!_ ”

“Blaine Anderson!”

“I think - I think there may have been a seagull in Gibraltar that didn’t hear you -”

“Blaine!”

“And he’s wondering where the rest of his flock went -”

Kurt thumps himself down into the sand, and starts untying his soaked sneakers.

“Which was, of course, to answer a distress call -”

“I hate you, you know.”

“I’m well aware.” Blaine crosses his arms and grins, the surf still lapping at his ankles from where he stands.

“Some _romantic_ walk on the beach.”

“What, wet feet aren’t romantic?”

Kurt just glares.

“You could get pneumonia -”

“Not helping.”

“And get nursed back to health by an attractive, mysterious stranger -”

“What decade do you live in?”

“Who is like, a millionaire philanthropist devoting his life to the betterment of - something -”

Kurt gives up on holding in the laughter, and slumps his head forward on his knees and giggles for what seems like forever. When he’s finally laughed himself out, he looks up at Blaine, who’s now standing right in front of him, arms still crossed and smiling hesitantly.

“I am sorry about your shoes.”

“It’s really okay.”

“Need a hand up?”

“Sure.”

Kurt’s hand is wet and sandy but Blaine takes it anyway and hauls him to his feet. And then - when Kurt’s bent down again to grab up his soaked shoes, and has them dangling by the laces - he doesn’t let go.

Hand-in-hand they walk back up the beach, until they reach the path back to the city again and Kurt has to stop to put his shoes on again. And then Blaine takes his hand again, laces their fingers together and squeezes when Kurt lets him lead them home.

*

They’re back at the sulfur springs the next day, for the second half of the scene and to make absolutely sure they got the light levels right this time - something wrong with the dailies, apparently, Kurt doesn’t catch exactly what. It’s less fun than it was yesterday, though. It’s colder, for one; a cool snap had set in sometime overnight, and the breeze is brisk enough to be uncomfortable.

For another, there’s Blaine. He’s not doing anything _wrong,_ not exactly. He’s not fumbling lines or missing cues or even goading Kurt and the crew into an extended giggle fit, which are hilarious and fun and time-consuming. But he’s distracted, and the energy just isn’t there, and everything is taking longer than it should.

Kurt doesn’t think it’s him. Last night before they’d gone to their separate rooms Blaine had hugged him, and Kurt had fallen asleep with the remembered feel of Blaine’s t-shirt, warm from his skin, against his cheek. In the morning he had been fine, too - nothing out of the ordinary, at least; it had been Blaine’s turn to bring coffee and he’d turned up at Kurt’s side as they were piling into the vans, proffered mocha in hand. So they’re good, which is good, because something is clearly _not_ good with Blaine. But there’s work to do, and Kurt needs to focus, so he puts Blaine out of his mind and tries to draw Brian out.

They’re scheduled to finish early today, and they don’t quite make the schedule as planned but they do, at least, get back in town in time for a late lunch. Blaine eats quickly and then vanishes, and Kurt starts to second-guess whether his weird mood doesn’t have anything to do with him after all.

There’s not much to do around the hotel. Most of the crew is out in the lot, working on whatever equipment overhaul had prompted the early finish in the first place. Sightseeing around the city has its allure but with the crew busy and Blaine apparently unavailable Kurt doesn’t want to wander off by himself. So Kurt finds himself back in his room, noodling around on his laptop. He replies to a query from Finn (the scotchgard is on the top shelf of your hall closet, how do you not know this and I do, congratulations on actually knowing what scotchgard is for and having some) and sends Marley a quick update. With Kurt and Blaine and Johnny and the rest of the crew in Algeria Marley’s on somewhat of a hiatus, but she’s been keeping busy - there’s a school in her neighborhood that needs costumes for their spring play, so she and Anita have volunteered their services. She’s sent pictures, and Kurt smiles at the teens and tweens in matching sailor suits. Sound of Music. Of _course_.

There’s an email from Jamie, too, and when Kurt opens it he blinks at the sheer volume of attachments.

_Hi Kurt, so, I know this is a ton of stuff, but you did ask for everything. This isn’t quite_ everything _, but it should give you a good start. There’s plenty more where this comes from, so let me know if there’s anything else you want more info on. Enjoy! -J_

There are reams of primary sources; pdf compilations of letters and diaries; links to e-book versions of everything from memoirs to college history textbooks; files of maps and military handbooks. And pictures.

He gets lost looking at the pictures. Most of them are in black and white, of course, which is fine - Kurt’s always appreciated a good vintage photo - but instead of artistic shots of London Bridge or the Eiffel Tower or fashion plates of women in hoopskirts and pearls these are _people,_ hundreds of them. Soldiers and airmen and seamen, nurses and mothers and wives, all staring out from gray faded frames on the computer screen at him, past him, into some present Kurt can hardly imagine. It takes his breath away. There are no pictures of Dave and Brian; no one knows who they really were, not really, as far as Kurt can tell. In all likelihood it will be Kurt and Blaine who will become their faces, and that’s odd and surreal and humbling in so many ways.

The sky is going gray outside when he blinks and looks at the clock again - an hour gone, maybe more, and all he’d done was look at pictures. Well. He’d spent longer as a kid looking at _Vogue._ He stands up from his desk and stretches. He feels cramped and restless after staring at a screen for so long when he so rarely has time to even read a book these days, and the room feels dark and restrictive. At first, it had been hard to get used to having people around, all the time - first on set, ten hours a day, and then here in Algeria twenty-four-seven - but he’s grown accustomed to it, and now the quiet and stillness is too much to deal with alone.

Blaine answers his second knock with a muffled “Come in!” Kurt opens the door, and then swings on the handle and stares. Blaine’s room is a wreck - the bed is unmade, Blaine’s laptop and tablet are open and on, and there are papers everywhere.

“What are you _doing?_ ” Kurt dazedly surveys the wreckage. Blaine glances up, and it takes him a second to blink and focus on Kurt.

“Oh. Hey.” He looks around at the mess. “Just working on some stuff.”

“I thought you’d finished your “stuff’ before you left.” Kurt lets the door close behind him and perches gingerly on the edge of Blaine’s desk chair, careful not to dislodge a stack of sheet music by his feet.

Blaine shakes his head. “Yeah, that’s done for now. This is something else.”

Kurt looks down at the top sheet of music while Blaine taps something into his laptop. “What is it?”

Blaine glances up at Kurt and, for the first time in the entire time Kurt’s known him, looks annoyed. But then he takes a breath and pushes his glasses up his nose and nods - at what, Kurt’s not sure.

“Johnny got his hands on me and the guys’ lastalbum. I guess he liked what he heard, because, well.” Blaine shrugs, and gives a smile, and looks actually pleased. “He asked if I wanted to try my hand at writing something for the soundtrack.”

“The score? I thought -” but Blaine is already shaking his head, flipping through a notebook of staff paper.

“No, Jaya’s doing the score, of course, and I can’t wait to hear it, she’s incredible. She sent me some stuff for this, actually, to give an idea of what the feel was going to be like - aha.” He apparently finds the page he was looking for and hands the notebook out to Kurt, who takes it curiously. “Credits song.”

Kurt raises an eyebrow as he skims through the pages. It’s still rough, in places very rough, but what’s there is - “Wow.” He looks back up at Blaine, who’s squirming a bit shyly on the bed. “This looks really good.”

“Really?” Blaine’s smile is just short of a beam.

“Yeah,” Kurt flips through the rest of the piece, and brushes his thumb across a line. “You do realize that if one of the leads writes the credits song for a romantic war drama, the fangirls are going to go absolutely nuts?”

“And fanboys,” Blaine grins, and holds out a hand.

Kurt passes the notebook back. “And fanboys. Of course.”

Blaine sets the notebooks aside and goes back to making notes on his computer. Kurt watches him for a minute, and then asks, “Okay, you’re doing the album with David and Phil, and the credits song for _G.I._ , not to mention acting as the _star_ of the movie -”

“Co-star,” Blaine interrupts, eyes still on his screen.

“- Co-star, whatever, what _else_ do you have up your sleeve?”

Blaine shrugs. “I like to stay busy.”

“Blaine, I’m doing _one_ of those things and I hardly have time to sleep.”

“Mmm.”

“You want me to shut up so you can concentrate, don’t you.”

Blaine’s eyes in the reflected light of his screen are silver and brown, his grin easy. “A little.”

“Do you mind if I work in here with you?”

“Not at all.” Blaine grins again and goes back to typing.

Kurt grabs his laptop from his room; when he comes back Blaine hasn’t moved at all, except to turn a page in his notebook.

They work til it’s dark and Kurt’s phone chirps with a reminder for dinner - at least, Blaine works. His focus is impressive, actually. If this is how he normally works then Kurt is less surprised that he can keep three (at least) projects going at once. He certainly spends enough _time_ working - there had been hints, before, but not until they’d been in each other’s pockets all day, every day, had Kurt realized just how much time Blaine spent with his nose buried in a laptop or a notebook or his phone.

So Kurt skims through the documents Jamie had sent him, and starts reading a file of letters between a G.I. at the front and his girlfriends - not multiple friends-who-are-girls, definitely _girlfriends,_ and he grins and thinks of Puck and that people haven’t changed at all.

But his attention span is not, apparently, as good as Blaine’s, and when his attention starts wandering his eyes wander, too. There’s not much to look at in the room, aside from the mess Blaine’s made, and that doesn’t even bear looking at, it’s making Kurt twitch for wanting to neaten it. So there’s not much to look at in the room, aside from Blaine. Blaine, whose shoulder blades Kurt can see shifting as he types, Blaine whose forearms are tanned and strong and whose fingers are graceful, skimming his keyboard the way they’d skimmed his guitar, that night at his house.

So he stares, because Blaine is beautiful and creative and talented and _right there_ and he’s making Kurt ache, just a little.

Blaine doesn’t even look up when Kurt’s phone goes off.

“Blaine.”

No response.

“Blaine?”

Nothing.

“Blaine!” Kurt leans over and shakes Blaine’s shoulder, just a little. He comes up, eyes wild, and blinks until he focuses on Kurt. It appears to take some effort.

“Yeah?”

“It’s dinnertime. Do you want to come down?”

It takes Blaine a moment to consider that, and then he shakes his head. “Nah, no thanks, I’m just going to finish this. I’ll be down in a few.”

“Alright.” Kurt pats his shoulder. “I’ll see you in a bit, then.”

“See ya.”

Blaine doesn’t come down, though, and Kurt eventually stops looking for him and gets caught up in a conversation on costuming and historical fidelity with Pat over chicken and couscous..

On his way back to his room Kurt stops at Blaine’s door. When there’s no answer to his knock, he pushes it open, to find that Blaine - hasn’t moved at all. He hasn’t even gotten up to turn the lights on; the only illumination is from his glowing-white computer screen, which lights Blaine up but leaves the rest of the room in darkness.

“Earth to Blaine,” Kurt says, leaning in the doorway, and is glad when Blaine actually looks over at him. “You missed dinner.”

“Oh.” Blaine blinks. “I guess I - got distracted. Sorry,” he says, and looks guiltily up at Kurt.

“It’s fine - I’m just worried about you passing out from exhaustion.”

“I’ll eat when I finish this. Promise,” Blaine says, and gives Kurt such big puppy-eyes that Kurt has to laugh.

“Alright,” he drawls, and crosses his arms sternly. “But just this once. Friday, we’re having a party.”

Blaine grins. “Deal.”

Kurt shuts the door behind himself when he leaves, and _hopes_ he can drag Blaine out of his pit.

*

It must be hours before Blaine goes to sleep, though, because it’s at some ungodly hour that Kurt is woken by the sound of his door banging closed. Kurt’s tired, but for some reason after that he can’t fall asleep, and ends up lying restless and miserable until - predictably - an hour before his alarm goes off.

When he wakes up again, it’s to torrential rain, and he entertains the faintest hope that filming will get rained out today and he’ll be able to curl up under the covers again and just sleep, until he remembers what’s on the schedule for the day.

_A night of pouring rain and two very soaked GIs beneath a solitary tree on an African plain._

Perfect.

So he drags himself down to the trailer - he skips breakfast in favor of the extra twenty minutes in bed - and finds Blaine in not much better shape, shadow-eyed and the unhappy kind of quiet when he passes Kurt his coffee and Pat goes to work on his hair.

It’s not a good day for it to be a grumpy, rainy day. Thanks to all the work the crew had done yesterday, there’s two extra cameras now, and Johnny wants them to film stuff for the DVD features - and today is the perfect day to do that, he tells them, while Kurt stares blankly and Blaine is clearly exerting a lot of effort not to scowl, over their steaming cups, because someone from somethingorother magazine is coming to interview them, part of the process, drum up media support.

So Kurt and Blaine exchange pained glances of mutual dissatisfaction behind Johnny’s back, and Pat puts even more makeup on them than usual, tells Kurt to leave the top button of his blouse undone over his protests (“Dave _never_ wears it like that!”) and before they know it they’re in folding chairs under bright lights, in front of a frighteningly cheery girl with a notebook a tape recorder. Maybe it’s the lights, or maybe it’s the glint in her eye, but Kurt feels acutely, vulnerably naked.

“How does this work?” he hisses at Blaine while they get wired for sound.

“You’ve never done this before?” Blaine whispers back, lifting his chin so Pat can fiddle with his collar.

“When the hell would I have?”

“Just relax and smile and answer the nice lady’s questions.”

Kurt rolls his eyes.

The interview begins.

It’s nothing Kurt doesn’t expect, nothing he hasn’t heard a hundred variations of in teen magazines and (publication.) But it is decidedly surreal from this side of the lens, and that’s not even factoring in Blaine.

Blaine - Kurt doesn’t know what he’s doing. Kurt’s seen him talk to press before, he is clearly not deficient in that area, handsome and charming and coyly self-effacing. The girl (Amanda? Alanna?) directs most of her questions to him, which is fine, and also nothing Kurt didn’t expect - Blaine is the known entity, after all, the headlining name that’s meant if nothing else to put butts in seats on opening night. But Blaine is - there’s really no other word for it - _graceless._ He fumbles questions he must have answered, or at least thought about, a dozen times before, and maybe it’s only evident to Kurt but he bristles, ever so slightly, every time Amanda (Andrea?) starts another question with “So, Blaine -”

He tries to pass questions off to Kurt; tries to include Kurt in the discussion; praises his performances in terms that would have made Kurt blush in any situation that was less weird than this one is right now. Now, it just feels fake and patronising and _wrong._

He wants to corner Blaine; he wants to ask him about it, demand what the _hell_ Blaine is doing fielding him questions when Kurt is perfectly capable of speaking up himself when he has something to say, what the hell Blaine is doing fumbly and awkward and unsure in the first place. But he has to smile for the camera until Alexandra (Alexandra!) thanks them and shakes both their hands, and then there’s no time, the interview’s put them behind schedule, and they have to pile into the van for the park that’s their destination today, somewhere with unobstructed views of the Algerian plain and great ancient trees they can sit under while Dave and Brian make out.

_Perfect._

*

The crew is probably happy they don’t have to dig out the rain towers. Kurt, huddled under a tent awning while the cameras get set up, muses darkly that at least the tower-rain tends to be warm.

He’d hoped he could sort things out with Blaine in the car on the drive over - after his initial foul mood, Kurt feels guilty for being so unhappy about what was probably Blaine just trying to be - even if misguidedly - nice. But for once they’re in separate vehicles, and the drive is slow and wet and bumpy over muddy, slick dirt roads through the park, and without meaning to or even really wanting to Kurt stews himself back into a low vat of brooding, moody energy.

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Blaine approach, cautiously, as if he’s unsure.

“You know,” Blaine says, and the brightness of his voice is ever-so-slightly forced, and somehow, that just makes it worse. “You should just - use the rain. Remember your character motivation!”

“I _know_ Blaine.” Kurt says, and he doesn’t _mean_ for it to come out as a snap, except that maybe he did. Screw Blaine and his earnestness and his movie star sage-ness and his workaholic-ness. “I’ve been doing this for a while, I’m not completely helpless.”

“Sorry, I was just -” Blaine starts back, eyes confused and a little hurt, but then his brows draw in and he looks confused and _angry._ “Sorry,” he says again, shortly, and Kurt can at least admire the drama of the way he turns on his heel and stalks off.

“Alright, places, everyone -” Johnny’s voice, and the cameras start moving. Kurt stands, and shucks off his rain jacket.

*

They’ve been sitting out here for hours, soaked to the skin, but Dave can’t imagine wanting to be anywhere else. Brian is next to him, smiling at him, pressed warm up against his side as they talk about nothing and everything, but when he puts a hand on Dave’s jaw and tilts his head up for the kiss his caress feels distant, and strange.

“Cut!”

Kurt pulls back and next to him Blaine bristles, and wriggles his shoulders uncomfortably against the scraggly trunk of the tree. They’ve been here for _hours_ , and are apparently no closer to being finished with this scene than they were hours ago.

“Okay, guys, that was almost it - just, a little more warmth, okay?”

“Johnny, it’s 58 degrees and pouring rain.”

“And you’re an actor and that’s why they pay you the big bucks.” Kurt has to smile at that, and even Blaine chuckles ruefully. Maybe _this_ time they’ll be able to get it.

“Everybody ready? Action!”

*

By the time they wrap for the day the sky is getting dark - not that it ever really got light - and everyone is in varying phases of cold-wet-miserable. Kurt’s not happy with the work they did today, and knowing that Johnny isn’t, either - he’d overheard him talking to the DP about possible reshoot locations, here and back in LA - just makes it that much worse. He’s a _professional._ This sort of stuff isn’t supposed to affect his performance - whatever “this sort of stuff” really is. Blaine’s still avoiding him, though, which he tries to be happy about on the ride back to the hotel.

It’s less of a relief than he’d hoped it would be when he’s back in his own room, combing his (shower-wet, thankfully, not rain-wet) hair out in the steamy bathroom and running through possible movies to spend the night curled up in front of. It’s also less of a relief than he thought it might be when there’s a knock at his balcony door, and opens it to a repentant-looking Blaine holding two steaming cups of coffee.

“What do you want?”

“Look, Kurt.” Blaine’s hair has started to dry - he must not have showered yet, with how frizzy it’s getting. “I’m - not sure what I did. But whatever it was, I’m really, really sorry.” He ducks his eyes up at Kurt, his shoulders all contrition. Kurt thinks about it. He’s not angry, not anymore, not really, but he is unhappy and hurt and still baffled at what game Blaine was possibly trying to play at that morning. But he is an adult, and a professional, and just spent a day learning acutely what it is like to be at outs with Blaine. Kurt steps aside to let Blaine into his room.

He pulls the door shut, and when he turns around again Blaine is standing facing him, still holding coffee, holding a cup out and giving Kurt the biggest puppy-eyes Kurt has ever seen, as though if Kurt doesn’t take it Blaine and his descendents will suffer the greatest misery unto the seventh generation.

Kurt tries not to smile and takes the cup. He can practically feel the tension run out of Blaine’s body. He plays with the lid, and doesn’t look at Blaine when he says, “I don’t like being patronised. I’m good at making myself heard when I want to be.” He looks up from the coffee to Blaine, whose eyes are wide and dark and utterly focused on Kurt. Kurt swallows. “I’m good at getting what I want.”

He expects a denial; he expects, at least, an apology. But Blaine just breathes, and then he says, “I don’t like being treated like the star. Not when I’ve done half as much as you to deserve it.”

“What are you talking about, you’ve done at least as much as me -”

“- and I want everyone to appreciate how amazing you are.”

Silence, then, as they interrupt each other and both fall silent. Kurt thinks he can hear the roar of the sea in the distance.

Blaine sets his cup down on the dresser. Kurt realizes his hands are empty, too, and doesn’t know when that happened.

“It’s okay,” he says.

“I know.” Blaine reaches out a hand, touches Kurt’s arm.

“I don’t like fighting with you.”

“Me neither.” Blaine’s thumb brushes the skin above Kurt’s elbow, and his whole body shivers.

“So we’re okay?”

“Yeah.” Blaine slides his hand down Kurt’s arm. He squeezes Kurt's fingers. 

“You’re - sure?”

Blaine steps forward, closer, and his eyes are dark and heavy on Kurt’s. “So sure.” When Kurt squeezes his hand back, Blaine leans in and kisses him.

There is a way that Brian kisses Dave. It is romantic and sweet and restrained and kind.

That is not how Blaine kisses Kurt.

Blaine kisses him hot and fierce and barely restrained until Kurt moans into it and lets his head fall back against the door, and then he’s not restrained at _all_. Blaine shuffles in, and when Kurt opens his mouth and lets the kiss slip deeper his fingers tighten in Kurt’s hair the kiss goes from unrestrained to desperate.

Blaine’s mouth is hot and wet and slick and he’s shaking a little, or maybe that’s Kurt, as Kurt finds Blaine’s waist, and then his hip where there is skin beneath the hem of his shirt, hot and smooth and tacky with humidity and sweat. When Kurt strokes it Blaine groans and rocks into him and Kurt is pinned, hand and hair and hips.

Kurt tries to untangle their fingers so he can push Blaine, not off but forward, but Blaine nips at the corner of his mouth and just hangs on tighter. Kurt fists his hand in Blaine’s shirt instead, tugging until Blaine pulls back enough to look Kurt in the eye, one scorching glance, and then all the heat of his body is gone and Blaine is stripping his shirt over his head and off. That’s not what Kurt had meant, but he’ll take it, god, he wants it, so he reels Blaine back in by his bare shoulders. His back is broad and solid, his hair is damp and tangled, and when Kurt hooks an arm around the back of his neck his hips rock forward, steady now, and he’s hard, and yes, _god,_ yes.

When Kurt pushes again Blaine doesn’t resist, just drops his hands to Kurt’s waist and then drops onto the bed and looks up at Kurt, eyes wide and questioning for _his_ sake but looking, for his own, so sure.

Well he would, says a voice in the back of Kurt’s mind. But they are past that, now, they are beyond it, outside of it. All Kurt wants is Blaine’s skin on his, so he leans down. Blaine’s eyelids flutter as Kurt kisses him.

They’ve play-acted this a dozen times, but that was never them, it was never _this_. Kurt strips his shirt off, and Blaine doesn’t stop when his hand lands on Kurt’s waist: he strokes the skin there, slides his fingertips under Kurt’s waistband. When Kurt lifts his hips and whines Blaine chuckles, or starts to - his eyes are wide and watered like he can’t get enough breath - and snaps open the button and pulls Kurt’s jeans off, one long easy pull.

Blaine shucks his own pants off and covers Kurt’s body with his when Kurt pulls him down again, kissing kissing kissing, underwear still on, tacky-cottony drag of their bodies together.This is fast, way faster than Kurt has ever gone before, but the rain is falling outside and mixing with the roar of the sea, and inside Blaine’s skin is gold in the low light of the lamp, his hips hard and heavy but his hands gentle, tentative. When Kurt draws his legs up and presses his toes into Blaine’s thigh Blaine wraps his warm hand around Kurt’s foot, fingers pressing into the arch, thumb stroking so gently at the skin fine-stretched over bone, and there has never been anything more romantic than this.

So Kurt is bold, and does what he never does, and lets his hands wander where they want, across Blaine’s back, down to his waist and then to his ass, stroking and then squeezing when Blaine pushes back into his hands. After that it’s easy to lose their underwear, and then it’s just skin, them and skin and sliding hands and kisses _everywhere._

Blaine sits back on his heels and for a long moment just _stares._ Kurt would feel self-conscious if he weren’t staring back, the rain-gray lamp-gold light making marble of Blaine’s skin, his chest, his arms, his cock.

Kurt is a fashionista, Kurt is an actor, he _likes_ being looked at, if it’s for the right reasons, and Blaine’s eyes on his body are so hot he can almost feel them. So Kurt lets his hands wander over his own skin, everywhere it feels good, throat and nipples and thighs and then where he _really_ wants it, and Blaine’s hot eyes go dark when Kurt strokes down over his own cock, teasing, trailing fingers.

They could stop here, but Kurt’s wanted him for so long, wanted him so badly, and now that he has him he wants _everything_. So he slides his fingers down, and lower, and back, and presses, just the smallest bit, and Blaine chokes.

“Oh my god Kurt, you’re going to kill me.” His voice is hoarse and raspy and he’s not kneeling beside Kurt anymore, he’s hovering over him, hands fluttering like he’s not sure where he’s allowed to touch. And that’s just ridiculous, because Kurt wants him _everywhere._ So he stretches out a leg, whimpers at the groan that elicits from Blaine, hooks his ankle around Blaine’s waist, and pulls.

It catches Blaine off-balance and he lands clumsily, hands wide in the sheets. “Really?” he asks, rasps, his eyes hopeful and shy and blown-dark with arousal. Kurt knows how he feels , but doesn’t have the breath to speak, so he nods and gasps out something he hopes sounds like “yes” when Blaine moves Kurt’s hand, and replaces it with his own.

Lube, and Blaine’s strong-slick fingers playing him, inside of him, and Kurt can’t help the whimper when Blaine leans down and kisses him while he slides in a third finger. “Please,” he pants through the kiss, begging fingers digging into Blaine's arms. Blaine presses a kiss to Kurt’s throat when his fingers slide out, and then he’s gone for the longest, emptiest seconds Kurt's ever known.

When Blaine comes back, condom slicked and on, he holds Kurt’s wrist with one hand and himself with the other while their eyes lock and Blaine pushes so irrevocably in.

It’s been awhile, but there’s no burn, no pain, just a bone-deep ache that cramps the marrow of him. It’s a _lot_ , almost too much, Blaine in him while Kurt is naked and panting and bare, lifting his hips to urge Blaine on while Blaine stares at him, eyes black and hazy, and finally moves.

It isn't going to last long, Kurt's not even going to need the hand Blaine wraps around him, though the shock of it nearly sends him over the edge on the spot: Blaine's hand, Blaine's hand on him _there,_ sliding and stroking while he thrusts in, and in, and in.

Kurt had resisted it, and refused it, but now that he's here he’s not taking this back, not when it feels this right, not when Blaine’s eyes, dark and hot on him _know_ him. He can feel himself slipping away, hesitation dissolving into mist and gone under the heat of Blaine's eyes. Maybe it won't last, but Blaine is holding his dick and his hand and rolling into him, constant ceaseless buzzing pleasure radiating out from everywhere they're touching, hips chests hands thighs cocks, Blaine (sweet naked vulnerable Blaine) stroking into him, where he's open and _aching_ for it, and Kurt's nerves snap all alight and he comes, waves of heat and hardness and pleasure whiting out his vision while Blaine whimpers above him, and throbs inside him.

There's kissing, while they both come down, kissing and caressing and the sweet sparky drag of fingertips across oversensitive skin. Blaine bites his lip and closes his eyes and nearly whimpers when Kurt brushes loose sweat-damp curls off his forehead.

"Are you okay?" Kurt whispers, and his heart cramps in his chest when Blaine opens his eyes - they're wet.

Wet and smiling, though, as he catches Kurt's hand and kisses his palm. “Really, really okay."

Kurt’s never done this like this before, but loose and warm and stretched out over Blaine while Blaine threads their fingers together, it doesn’t feel wrong. It feels like he knows Blaine, now, the secrets and secret places of him, and he’s not sure what happens next but maybe, with Blaine, that can be okay. So he lets himself do what he wants to do, nestles his head on Blaine’s chest and holds Blaine’s hand while Blaine pushes his fingers through Kurt’s hair, gentle and slow.

“Kurt,” he says, after a long while, and Kurt can feel the hum of his voice in his chest. He lifts his eyes to meet Blaine’s, and Blaine brushes a thumb across his forehead. “I’m really glad to be here.” His voice is soft, tender, and it’s so unlike what Kurt had once been afraid of with him that he can feel his own eyes stinging.

Kurt lifts himself up and crawls forward so he can press a sweet kiss to Blaine’s mouth. “Me too,” he whispers, and feels vulnerable with the honesty until Blaine lets his hands drop so he can wrap warm bare arms around Kurt’s shoulders, and hold him there. It’s not everything, but it’s enough - Blaine _means_ this, Kurt can feel it in the way his fingers press into his shoulderblades. Not everything, but enough to let go, and just go forward. 

_Part 3b posting Sunday, February 24th (Tomorrow!)_


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, as you may be noticing, the beach is a recurring set/location in this story. It was one of the standout lines for me in the original letter (“Fond goodbyes on a secluded beach beneath the star-studded velvet of an African night,” what else is a fic-minded writer supposed to do with that?) Once I decided I was going to send Kurt, Blaine & Crew on location to do a chunk of the filming, I started looking for a good beach. I looked at the California coast, I looked at France, I looked at Malta, I looked at Croatia. None of them had exactly the kind of beach I had imagined every time I read the letter - big, lots of sand, secluded, sheltered from the mainland by big beautiful cliffs - and for a whole host of reasons I wasn’t convinced I wanted to send them to Algeria anyway. I doubted the beach of my imagination actually aligned with anything actually near Oran anyway, cause real life just doesn’t work like that, right?
> 
> Well. Finally I started googling “Oran beaches.” And the first picture that came up - oh _there_ you are! Madagh Beach: Big sand, high cliffs, sheltered cove. I couldn’t believe it. It was gorgeous. It was _perfect_. It’s within walkingish distance of the city, and there is actually the slightest smallest chance it is actually the beach mentioned in the letter. And in case I was missing the message being sent to me from above: the first picture I clicked had originally been posted in a travel forum (oh man remember forums?), and the avatar of whoever had posted it was a picture of two guys making out. 
> 
> I got the message. I was sending the boys to Oran, and I was never looking back.

Dinner is - Kurt expects it to be weird, he really does. Because he, Kurt Hummel, just slept with his co-star and best friend, Blaine Anderson, and that is just a mess waiting to happen. Well, not _waiting_ to happen any more, he guesses.

But Blaine just gets dressed, like this is something they do, chatters about the schedule for tomorrow and asks about the book on Kurt’s nightstand that he finds when he picks up Kurt’s discarded shirt and hands it back to him with a grin. Then they’re walking down to dinner together, shoulders knocking together like they always did, and it’s _familiar_ but it’s - not casual. Blaine sits next to Kurt and goads Pat about costume designs, and when Kurt throws in a supportive comment Blaine presses his leg against Kurt’s under the table, and catches his eye, and smiles.

When Kurt’s done eating he excuses himself back upstairs, says he’s got some emails to write. When Blaine looks up from his conversation with Johnny and catches his eye Kurt smiles at him, because this isn’t surrender and this isn’t retreat, he just needs some time to process. So when Blaine smiles back, and tells him to sleep well, he’s able to climb the stairs back up to his room without a sinking weight of doubt. The doubt is there, unavoidable, a shadow in his peripheral vision until he turns his head to look straight at it, so he looks straight at it. Blaine’s smile and his voice and his hands, Blaine in his bed. He tries to process, he does, but it’s too much, so Kurt just showers and brushes his teeth and lets it go. 

When he crawls back into bed, the still-rumpled sheets smell like citrus and coffee. 

*

The next morning, Kurt wakes up with doubts creeping in his stomach. It’s not even about Blaine, specifically, it’s just habit after all these years, constantly second-guessing and churning over all decisions until the worry and guilt is low in his stomach. What if Blaine says - no? What if it was a mistake, an aberration, too-long days and a weird afternoon and the profound loneliness of being thousands of miles away from everyone they know? What does it say about Kurt that he doesn’t want it to be an aberration?

That he’s a romantic, that he wants love and commitment and long-term, that Blaine is beautiful and interesting and funny and smart and Kurt was interested from the start, if Blaine had wanted to be what Kurt wanted him to be. So. Nothing really new there. And Kurt still does want long-term and romance and commitment, he is Kurt Hummel, he is never going to not. But maybe - just maybe. Maybe none of that looks like what he always thought it did. 

There’s a knock on his door. Kurt opens it, and on the other side is Blaine, bright and smiling and holding out a cup of coffee.

“But it’s my morning,” is all Kurt can think of to say, as he takes the cup and breathes in the rich dark steam.

“Good morning to you, too.” Blaine walks past him into the room, perches on the edge of the bed with his own cup. “But you never got around to drinking my apology coffee yesterday, so I figured I owed you one.” He lifts his own cup and takes a sip, his eyes sparkling over the lid.

“Well then.” Kurt lifts an eyebrow and drinks. They have to get going soon, call is in just a few minutes and there’s a long drive today, so Kurt should pull together his tablet so he can read on the way. But it’s a bright calm morning, and Blaine is sitting across the room and smiling at him, and the rest of the world can keep, just for this moment. 

*

It’s an absolutely gorgeous day, the warmest it’s been so far, the sky wide and blue and the clouds high and white and fluffy. Kurt’s brought his tablet but he quickly abandons it in favor of the view, and even Blaine can’t focus on his phone for very long.

When they’re about a mile away from the cliff the caravan stops, and Kurt and Blaine get bundled out. They’ll be driving - well, them and a camera crew - the last way themselves, in the gorgeous old Jeep, for yet another driving shot. Kurt can’t bring himself to resent it, though, as he adjusts his collar and lets Stacy retouch his makeup. 

And then he’s in the Jeep, hands on the wheel, and Brian is next to him and the road is open and the sun is shining and it feels like freedom, it feels like flying. 

They can smell the sea before they can see it, salt and water-fresh breeze, and then the horizon drops away from brown and green and it’s just blue, everywhere blue, water and sky and waves fading out to mist and infinity. He laughs from sheer delight and Brian’s hand on his knee tightens, not a warning for once, just happy, connected, _there._

*

Kurt had wondered if sleeping together - it makes him blush, at inopportune moments, makes his hands twitch into self-conscious fists when he catches himself staring at Blaine’s collarbone, because he knows there is a bruise, just out of sight under the collar of his shirt - would make things as Dave-and-Brian different, weird, off. But Dave and Brian are still Dave and Brian, and _they_ have been together, they know the shape of each other’s skin, how to unknot and unravel each other utterly, and they trust in each other, and in themselves. It’s he and Blaine, now, who have no script, who are going to have to figure this out as they go for themselves, the way Brian and Dave did, not on paper but on their own and eighty years ago.

*

“Hey, Kurt.”

“Mm?” Kurt holds up an apologetic hand and looks up from the conversation he’s currently having with Pat and Stacey.

“What are you doing tonight?”

“I - don’t know. Probably just read some more, I figured you’d have stuff to get caught up on.”

“Want to watch a movie?” Now that Kurt really looks, he can see that Blaine is practically vibrating.

Kurt smiles, and excitement makes Blaine’s eyes burn bright. “I’d love to.”

*

“Alright, I have - Star Wars, and Avengers, and Inception, and Moulin Rouge -”

Kurt sits cross-legged on Blaine’s bed and stares at him. “You are a deeply dorky person, did you know that?”

“Not at all,” Blaine grins at him from over the top of his laptop, where he’s scrolling through his movie collection. “What, sci-fi isn’t your thing?”

“Sci-fi is fine.”

“But?”

Kurt wraps his arms around his knees, and tilts side-to-side. “I’ve always had a thing for romantic comedies.”

“I am not remotely surprised.” Blaine reaches across Kurt to plug the power cord into the wall. “But I think you’ll like this one.” 

“Alright. I’m trusting you.” Kurt settles back comfortably into the pillows while Blaine grins at him and hits play.

*

“What - ohmygodBlaine what _is_ that -”

“Yeah, okay, no, romcom it is.” Blaine disentangles himself from where Kurt is currently trying to hide behind his shoulder from the screen, on _what_ is happening he doesn’t even know. 

“Thankyouthankyouthankyou.”

“Wimp,” Blaine chuckles, and starts _Sleepless in Seattle._ Kurt elbows him in the side, but Blaine just laughs again and kisses Kurt’s temple.

*

“I had a really good time today.” 

Kurt hasn’t been paying attention to the movie for a while now, and he turns his head from where it’s resting on Blaine’s shoulder to look up at him. “Even when we just worked and watched movies?”

Blaine finds Kurt’s hand where it’s resting on his lap, and runs his thumb across the back of it. “Kurt.”

Kurt’s been happy, all day, but now his heart is beating quick and it feels beyond flying, he feels high, and just a little bit scared. He flips his hand so that they’re palm to palm, and laces their fingers together. “I had a good time too.”

“Me, too” They’re close already, it’s easy as anything for Kurt to lift his face when Blaine tilts his down, and then they’re kissing. Slow-tender glide of lips, and Kurt squeezes Blaine’s hand and feels like a kid, he feels giddy, all zipping hormones and bubbling want as Blaine shifts the angle better and licks into his mouth. They may be thousands of miles from home and god knows what Algeria is doing to both of them, but this is still _Blaine,_ Blaine who can make Kurt laugh at the worst times, who brings him coffee, and who has always sat a little too close.

Blaine’s groan is only encouragement when Kurt gets a hand on his fly and unfastens it, so he works Blaine’s underwear aside and down and then has it, Blaine hot and velvet-skinned and heavy in his hand. Blaine groans again and works his hips forward when Kurt starts to stroke, and then his hands are at Kurt’s waist, unzipping and unbuttoning and Kurt can’t hold in the gasp when Blaine wraps a hand around him.

They’re kissing, messy-wet and eager, and jerking each other off and it’s perfect, so perfect, and Kurt kind of wants to stay like this forever. But Blaine’s hands are wicked and hot and sure and his mouth is warm and welcoming and Kurt lets himself drown in it, makes out with Blaine and pushes into his fist and works his hand around his dick, smooth and hot and the beginnings of slick, now, until Blaine arches into his hand and comes, panting. 

That’s a rush, too, getting somebody off, getting _Blaine_ off, and Kurt giggles when Blaine rolls him onto his back and sucks a kiss under his ear, giggles until a twist of Blaine’s hand makes him gasp and then he’s coming, curling up into Blaine’s chest and whimpering while Blaine works him through it. 

They’re sweaty and they’re still dressed except for where their pants are undone and pushed down and the credits are humming softly on Blaine’s laptop. It feels _amazing._ But Blaine’s eyelids are starting to droop, his breath coming slow and steady and they have a long day tomorrow, and Kurt should leave, he should let Blaine sleep - 

Blaine’s hand catches his arm when he rolls off the bed, Blaine blinking open warm-bright eyes and pressing his fingertips into the fine skin of Kurt’s wrist. “Please don’t go.”

Blaine’s bed, Blaine’s warm body, all night. “Okay.” Kurt takes off his clothes, undresses down to his underwear and slides in under the sheets next to Blaine, who finishes kicking his pants aside and wraps strong arms around Kurt and pulls him closer, pulls him _close._

Kurt tucks his head against Blaine’s chest, and lets sleep pull him under.

*

“Alright, everybody, we’ve had some scheduling adjustments, so here’s what the last couple of days are going to look like.” Kurt looks up blearily from his toast at Johnny and covers a yawn. Next to him, Blaine nudges over his own cup of coffee.

“We got kicked out of the Opera House for Friday, so we’re going to be doing that tomorrow instead, and then the seawall in the afternoon. You going to be up for some serious emoting, Blaine? 

“Always,” Blaine grins. 

“Then, back to the seawall Friday morning in case we lose the light tomorrow night, and then back to the cliff again in the afternoon.”

“I thought we finished that.” Kurt frowns, and drinks some of Blaine’s coffee.

“Yeah, but the gals added some dialogue that we should catch while we still have the spot.”

“Mmkay.”

“Of course we’re at the beach all day today. You’ll have Friday night to pack up, and whatever time’s left over in the afternoon, so consider your packing choices wisely. We start pulling out of here at eight Saturday morning.”

There are assorted grumblings and groanings at that, but Johnny stops them with a wave. “That’s not til Friday, though. In the meantime,w e have some hearts to break. Everybody ready? Alright, everybody up, let’s go!”

*

Kurt’s always liked the anachronisms of theatre and filmmaking - the mellow techies in their blacks and headsets, weaving through clots of overdramatic actors; the film crews in t-shirts and shorts that Kurt and Blaine (in 1940s fatigues and 2020s sunglasses) dodge on their way to the truck. This morning it feels more dramatic even than usual, and Kurt feels hyperaware of the discontinuities when Max asks them for the time, and Blaine checks Brian’s watch while Kurt pulls out his cell phone. 

“Hey, Blaine, how’s the video going?” Max asks, as they wait for sound equipment to get loaded. “Katie said her girlfriends can’t wait for the next one to come out.”

“Good!”Blaine says, leaning back to dodge a passing gaffer. “I was having some problems earlier, but it’s coming along really well now.”

Kurt glances up from his phone. “What’s this now?”

“Oh, just, something I’ve been working on off and on. Some video shorts - just, little stuff.”

“How many projects are you _working_ on?”

Blaine shrugs, and looks over Kurt’s shoulder at an open truck as he counts. “Um. Four? No, five, counting the movie.”

Kurt lowers his phone and stares at Blaine. “We’re going to have a discussion about that.”

“Um. We are?”

“Yes, Blaine. There is ‘keeping yourself busy’ and there is _insane_ , oh my god, when do you even sleep?”

They get the signal to get in the car. As they start walking Blaine glances around and then says, “When I’m with you.”

That is _way_ too much to process this morning, after the morning they’ve already had. So Kurt makes himself breathe and puts a hand on Blaine’s back as he climbs in the car. “We’ll talk about it later.”

Blaine smiles at Kurt as he slides in after. “Okay.”

 

“

The beach is still a little bit foggy but not deserted anymore, scattered with trucks and equipment and people - in costume, and in character, by seven. It’s a long scene, and the fog rolling in from the water is making the lighting less than cooperative, so it’s going to be a very long day. 

A very long, very hard day.

It’s not the saddest scene of the movie - at least, Kurt doesn’t think it is. That one’s still coming. There’s nothing even inherently _sad_ about the content of this one. Except - except. Any redemption of joy, and hope of happiness and together-ever-after, that makes this less than gutting, depends on a wish that doesn’t come true.

It gets to them.

*

“This isn’t goodbye.” Brian smiles sweetly and brushes the hair back from Dave’s forehead. “Not really. I’ll see you, so soon.”

“I can’t wait to show you the farm. You’re going to love it.”

“I’ll love anywhere, so long as you’re there.”

Dave’s heart is cracking under the weight of this farewell, no matter how much he tries to shore it up with promises to Brian, to himself. Home, and together, and _soon,_ is what they tell themselves, and it’s all that makes this goodbye bearable - that it is not a goodbye.

“Write me?” 

Brian’s fingers trace his cheek, while his eyes watch his mouth. “You know I will.” He smooths Dave’s eyebrow with his fingertip, little touches, tiny caresses, like after all this time together this is what will make his hands remember him. It still _feels_ like a goodbye.

“I love you,” Dave says, because it’s never felt so true, he never has loved him so much as he does right now. 

Brian cups his jaw in his palm. “I love you too.”

“I’m going to miss you.” They’d promised not to say it; together, they will be together, no sense in worrying about what they could not change or avoid but it’s true, so true: Dave loves Brian, and will miss him like a part of his heart is gone.

“Dave - ” tears in Brian’s eyes, and his voice cracks. His thumb brushes the corner of Dave’s mouth.

“Kiss me?” There’s so much Dave wants, things they might someday have and things they can never have, but what he wants most of all, right now, is that.

Brian’s mouth is wet and warm and tastes like tears, and when the first sob shudders through him Dave digs his fingers into the back of Brian’s jacket and clings. 

Pulling away from the kiss, with time running out and no last-nights left, is the hardest thing he’s ever done.

And then they have to do it again.

And again. 

And again.

Dave and Brian don’t know how long they’re going to be apart. Kurt and Blaine know it’s going to be forever.

*

They work until it’s dark, through the sunset that burns away the last of the mist, past the dark and into the midnight hours when the beach is cold and blue and glowing-white in the light of the moon. It’s exhausting in the most draining of ways, and Kurt’s too tired to even feel relieved when they finally wrap for the night. It all just feels too _much_ , too much love, too much loss, too much _Dave_ , so close under his skin, clawing at his lungs and up his ribcage until Kurt doesn’t even know if his breaths are his own. 

Blaine is feeling it, too, maybe even more than Kurt is, and even his boundless energy had worn out with the too-much feeling of it all. Kurt had found him in between takes, on the sand with his back to the water, sitting and staring at the cliff rising above them. “I can’t look at it anymore,” he said, when Kurt had sat down beside him.

“Can’t look at what?”

“The sea.” He’d groped for Kurt’s hand in the sand. “It’s going to take you away.” 

Kurt had squeezed his hand. “I’m right here, sweetheart,” he had said, and wondered how much it sounded like the echo of a lie. “I’ll always be here.”

So they pile back into the truck, leave the beach empty and open and silent again. Safe in the dark Blaine tucks his head into Kurt’s shoulder, and their hands catch and cling. 

Back in Kurt’s room, Kurt shuts the door behind them and touches the knob to make sure it’s locked; it’s never not been, but tonight he wants as much as he can get between himself, and Dave and that beach. 

“Kurt -” Blaine’s voice is hushed in the dark, but it still cracks, and he pushes Kurt up against the closed door and kisses him. His mouth is hungry, desperate even - ordinarily it might be too much, but everything Kurt’s been feeling today is so close under his skin, and all he wants is more. Blaine rocks his hips into Kurt’s and nips the corner of his mouth and it unlocks him, everything flooding out. 

“Want you,” he pants, when Blaine breaks the kiss to mouth and suck at his throat. “Blaine I want you -”

“Shower,”Blaine growls, and rocks his hips forward again. “Gonna strip you and -” Kurt grabs his waist and pulls him closer, and Blaine’s breath bursts out of him in a pant. “God, Kurt, I _need_ you.”

They stagger into the bathroom, clothes tossed in their wake; Blaine pulls his shirt over his head and Kurt slams the switch to turn the light on. Blaine grabs the back of Kurt’s head to hold him in place for the kiss while he leans to fumble the water on, and before it’s fully warm he’s stepping into the tub, pulling Kurt with him, hand still curled around the back of his neck. Blaine presses him up against the shower wall while Kurt blinks water out of his eyes and tries to gasp in enough air for the kiss.

“You are so hot,” Blaine hisses over his mouth, pressing a leg in between Kurt’s. The contact jolts through him, already hard and wanting so much. “I just want to touch you - everywhere -” Blaine’s hands scrabble over Kurt’s torso “- oh god your skin _Kurt_ -” He closes his hands on Kurt’s hips and scratches; Kurt will have bruises tomorrow but he wants this, wants the pain and pleasure that are _his_.

He also wants Blaine. So he presses forward, just enough to give himself enough room to slide down to his knees on the slick tiles. When he nuzzles and then bites at the soft skin at Blaine’s hip Blaine’s head thunks back against the shower wall, and his fingers push into Kurt’s hair to hold him there.

“Kurt - right there - oh please your _mouth_ \- Blaine groans when Kurt sinks over him, tonguing and sucking while Blaine’s hips roll forward and his fingers tighten in Kurt’s hair. Kurt wants the weight of him on his tongue, full and velvet-soft, but he also needs this, needs the words and gasps and moans Blaine’s panting above him, needs his hands on Blaine and Blaine’s hands on him, clinging and grabbing and holding and putting Kurt back in his own skin while Blaine fucks into Kurt’s mouth and Kurt just holds on, and makes him come.

Kurt sits back on his knees and presses his fingers to his mouth while Blaine sinks against the wall and braces himself there, hands splayed out against the tile and his chest rising and falling in rapid, heaving breaths. The look in Blaine’s eyes is awed, and a little destroyed, and Kurt’s heart is gone. He still wants so much, though, and no matter how much trouble he’s getting himself into he can’t stop now. So he shifts back to let Blaine crouch down and lift him up to the tub edge, and holds Blaine’s hips and pulls him closer when Blaine straddles him. They’re both shaking and slipping and it’s all so goddamned metaphorical as Blaine jerks him off, quick and rough and almost painful, and kisses Kurt like he needs him.

Kurt whimpers and whines and finally has to bury his face in Blaine’s shoulder to muffle the keening he can’t hold back as he comes, helpless, shuddering in Blaine’s arms as Blaine strokes him through it. His muscles feel like water as he trembles and shivers, and Blaine curls his fingers into the back of his hair and holds Kurt’s head to where he has to hide it against Blaine’s neck. He feels raw and overwhelmed, his nerves stripped and exposed. 

Blaine strokes a thumb over Kurt’s ear and kisses his shoulder gently. “Cleanup and bed?”

They’re both unsteady on their legs, soap and lather washing away and down the drain, and they stumble and cling to each other as they towel off and fall into bed. Kurt wraps an arm around Blaine and pulls him tight, keeping his face tucked into the crook of his shoulder, where everything is warm and clean and real.

*

In the morning Blaine kisses Kurt awake, so that when he finally blinks back to consciousness all the can see is Blaine, propped on an elbow and smiling above him, and all the can feel is Blaine, warm-heated skin under the blankets.

“Morning,” Kurt smiles, and stretches, wound-tight muscles stretching out loose and easy. 

“Good morning, beautiful,” Blaine says, and kisses him again. After the weight of last night it feels good just to lie here, tangled together and kissing softly while the room gets lighter and the alarm clock threatens from the nightstand. Kurt finally pulls away with a reluctant kiss to Blaine’s pouted lip. 

“I need to get my clothes,” he says apologetically, as he slips out of bed. “See you at breakfast?”

“Mmkay.” Before he can turn to go Blaine grabs his hand, and presses a kiss to his knuckles. “Don’t be too long.”

Maybe it’s something they should talk about, this bleed between them and their characters and themselves, and what it does to them. It’s probably not healthy but it’s what makes Kurt feel so much and he needs the feeling in order to _be_ Dave. For that it’s worth it - the vividness, the clarity of Dave’s thoughts in Kurt’s mind, the realness of him, so very near - even if he has to stand through a day running scenes with the constant want running through him for calm, for safety, for Blaine and the quiet space they can create alone, without their characters, just for them.

* 

Breakfast is quiet and mostly deserted; everyone is feeling the late night, and even with the time it took Blaine and Kurt to pull themselves out of bed and get dressed they’re still among the first downstairs. 

Kurt doesn’t know if he wants to go to the Opera House. He’s been looking forward to it since he landed in Oran, the one place they know, for _sure_ , that Dave and Brian were. Even the beach is just a guess - an educated guess, but really, just a guess, in the end. It’s not like he gets a choice either way but after yesterday he’s afraid; on the beach and then later, with Blaine, it had been too much. Kurt will never forget the feeling of it, and he doesn’t want to, but he’s also not sure he wants to experience it again any time soon. 

To his relief, he doesn’t have anything to worry about. The Opera House is stately, beautiful, elegant, old, but it feels real, and grounded, in a way the beach had not, and the realness of the place grounds Kurt to the realness of himself. Just another set. It’s mostly exterior shots they’re doing anyway, since they have the soundstage of the interior back in LA, but now that he’s here Kurt’s eager to explore, this little slice of tangible history. It’s amazing, really, how much the set actually looks like the real place. It all feels so familiar - Kurt nearly expects Marley to round a corner any moment with a sashay and a smile. 

Blaine finds him when he stands in the wings, looking out at the stage. Kurt’s never been a history buff, not exactly, but this is their stage, they were _here_ , and that, frankly, is really cool. 

“So, if memory serves,” Blaine says, and leans against a pillar. “This is where Brian and Dave ‘reached an understanding’ before opening night.” 

Kurt grins at him. “You know it is.” 

“So, in that spirit -” Blaine swoops a little bow, and holds out a hand. “Dance with me?” 

For Dave, it’d probably be something out of a dream sequence, being foxtrotted around the stage by a dashing G.I. his head tossed back in laughter when Kurt swings him down into a dip. For Kurt, though, it’s just one more way to fall a little bit more, Blaine letting Kurt’s hands at his back to hold him up, and spinning him out again when they’re both back on their feet. Someone’s filming them - god help the outtakes, but serves the lighting people right for letting them have the downtime in the first pace. 

They have to stop to film, eventually, just a few shots, and then Blaine grabs Kurt’s hand and pulls him back into the curtains. 

“What are you -? Blaine!” 

“Exploring!” Blaine grins. “Kurt they were _here,_ can you believe it?” 

Kurt can - this place of music and laughter and performance; not all of their story was sad, and maybe it’s just as important - maybe it’s even more important - to remember the happy parts, too. Otherwise - he thinks, as Blaine catches his eye and seems to read his thoughts, the way his smile goes thoughtful when Kurt drops his hand but crowds him into a corner. 

“Blaine? Kurt! Where did you guys get off to, we got to go -” Johnny’s voice, pulling them out of their sudden reverie. 

“We’ll be right there!” Kurt calls, his voice suddenly loud in the close area. He’s close enough to Blaine to feel the rise and fall of his chest. Otherwise, what’s the point? 

Kurt kisses Blaine until there’s another, approaching-frantic “Guys! So help me if I have to send in a search party -” before he can pull back with a last kiss to the corner of Blaine’s mouth. 

“See you in the car?” he says, with the lift of an eyebrow, and Blaine gives him a wide-eyed smile and squeezes his arm as he turns to go. 

* 

Kurt doesn’t have to go to the seawall that afternoon - except as a dot on an imaginary ship on the horizon, he’s not in this scene at all. But there’s nothing else really to do, except sit in his room and read more, so he joins the caravan down to the water again. It’s not the same beach - no retaining walls on _their_ beach, but one a mile or so down, a little more populated, a little more built up. It’s easy enough to stay out of the way, perching on an empty crate and watching the bustle around him as Blaine gets suited up and his makeup retouched and then spends the next few hours standing on the seawall looking out at the ocean looking sad. 

It’s almost comical, at first, and from his perch (in his streetclothes and sunglasses, and oh don’t modern blends breathe better than those fatigues) it even looks a little absurd - Blaine-Brian surrounded by crew and equipment, only Brian for the few degrees of perspective between him and the camera. But Brian is watching Dave sail away, and Blaine is _good,_ and it’s not long before Kurt gets sucked into the feeling of it. 

The comedy and the absurdity falls away, and as they line up the cameras for another take he catches sight of Blaine as he just - turns, something simple, hands a water bottle back to someone. The way the line of his shoulder runs, from his neck down to his arm - it’s so immediate and real and there and alive. Dave is on that ship - what he’s doing Kurt doesn’t know for sure, maybe he’s being kept busy or maybe he’s standing on the deck, looking back at the fading shoreline and trying to see Brian there one last time. Kurt can see Blaine roll up his sleeves and push a hand through his hair, and he wishes he could give Dave this.

It’s sad, again, and Kurt doesn’t want to be sad anymore; he’s tired of it, done with it, and as they’re wrapping he texts Pat and calls Amelia, and grabs Blaine’s arm as he passes on his way to the truck. 

“Meet us in my room at ten,” he says, and grins at Blaine’s confused look. “We’re having a party.”

*

There are probably places they could go, in the city; so much has changed in recent years, but none of them are locals, no one knows the landscape. It’s much, much easier on everyone just to drag extra chairs into Kurt’s room (he’s on the top floor, near the end of the hall, with Blaine on one side and Max on the other; so long as they don’t go insane, they won’t bother anyone) and pool their music collections and their alcohol stashes.

It feels like - well, it feels like every ridiculous high school party he’s ever been to, actually. Most of the crew eventually manages to find their way up to the room, and the music gets wilder and the dancing gets a little sloppier. The last few days haven’t been hard just on him and Blaine. The whole crew has been working long hours, far away from home, and it’s starting to wear on them. There’s just a day left here in Oran, but after that the trip home is another whole day of the stress of airtravel, and - there’s nothing in the near future, or the near past, that doesn’t feel like work.

Well. Blaine catches Kurt’s eye when he stands up from adjusting an iPod in its doc, and winks when he sees Kurt staring. Not _nothing_.

They haven’t talked about this yet, Kurt thinks, as Blaine walks towards him (out of uniform, jeans and tight dark t-shirt, _god_ , Kurt has always had it bad, and the alcohol isn’t helping). They haven’t talked about what it means for them, and they _definitely_ haven’t talked about what it might mean for anyone else, and it could mean a lot to a lot of people in - a lot of different ways. They need to talk about this.

Blaine smiles that dark-eyed smile that made Kurt’s knees go weak the first week he met him, and takes the cup from his hand. He sets it down on a stack of books, and holds out a hand. Kurt takes it, and lets Blaine pull him out to dance.

Kurt should probably be more self-conscious about this; they’ve kept whatever this thing is between them private so far. But everyone is being ridiculous and a little bit drunk and maybe it doesn’t have to mean that much to anyone that Blaine grabs his hips and pulls him closer when the music shifts to something heavier and slower, or that Kurt wraps his arms around Blaine’s neck and rocks with him in time to the beat.

There’s no way anyone could miss, though, when, several songs in, Blaine steers Kurt to the edge of the room and then pushes him against the wall, sliding a leg between his and pressing a kiss to his neck.

“Blaine!” Kurt’s hands scramble at his sides, but when he tries to push Blaine off Blaine just slides in closer. “What are you _doing?_ ”

Blaine lifts his head, and his eyes are dark and sparkling. “I’m making out with Kurt Hummel at a party.”

“Yes but - Blaine there are _people._ ”

“I don’t care,” Blaine says, and rolls his hips in a way that make Kurt’s breath hitch in his throat. “Do you?”

Kurt should - he really should care, because they’re starting to attract looks (and Pat is going for her phone, god help them), and there is sure to be hell to pay tomorrow. But Blaine feels good pressed up against him, hard hands and eager hips and Kurt wants, wants the fun and the ease of this, of Blaine and a party and ridiculousness far away from home, without anything heavy weighing them down. 

“No,” he says, and snakes his arms around Blaine’s neck again, and grins at the look on Blaine’s face when Kurt pulls him in for a kiss.

So they dance, and Kurt lets Blaine’s hands pull him farther into whatever this is. By the time the party is starting to wind down and people are wandering back to their own rooms Kurt has Blaine pressed into a corner, sweaty and happy and kiss-flushed. Blaine pulls him closer with a hand on his ass and Kurt giggles and then groans into his shoulder when his breath tickles Kurt’s ear. “Wanna get out of here?” 

Blaine’s room is dark and silent compared to Kurt’s, and Blaine leaves the lights off when he pushes Kurt up against the inside of his door and then drops to his knees. Kurt clings to Blaine’s shoulders while he sucks him off, eager and hot, and it’s like every hookup he’s ever thought about, taking some hot stranger home from a club, every hookup he swore he would never have. Except that it’s not a stranger, it’s _Blaine,_ who swallows happily around him and then stands to press himself up against Kurt, hips rocking like they’re still dancing but more insistent, now, denim of his jeans rough against the oversensitive skin of Kurt’s hip.

“Thought about doing this all night,” he pants in Kurt’s ear, while Kurt shuts his eyes and feels the sparks of arousal flicker in his belly, even though he just came. “Pushing you up against a wall and just fucking against you til I couldn’t stand it anymore -”

Kurt snakes a hand down between them and presses it to the bulge in Blaine’s fly, where he’s hard and _big_ and Kurt can feel the heat of him, even through his pants. “You can, you know,” he whispers in Blaine’s ear, nipping it when Blaine groans against him.

“Fuck - yes - Kurt -” Blaine shudders as he comes, dropping his head to Kurt’s shoulder as he catches his breath. He wraps his arms around Kurt’s waist and pulls him in, more gently now, and drops a kiss to Kurt’s shoulder. “I should have taken you dancing ages ago.”

“Is that what we’re calling it now?” Kurt asks with a lifted eyebrow, and Blaine grins when he lifts his head. 

“Works for me.” He lifts on the balls of his feet to kiss Kurt on the nose, and then rests his forehead against Kurt’s. All evening it’s been light and fun - Kurt has exerted the effort to keep it light and fun - but now the mood is still, intimate, and it’s just easy to wrap his arms around Blaine and hold him up, easy just to be with Blaine, and not think about anything else. 

“Bed?” He asks, when Blaine starts to nuzzle drowsily into his shoulder, and smiles happily when Blaine nods sleepily. 

 

*

Kurt wakes up early - far, far too early - to his phone beeping insistently. It takes a moment for him to find it (still in the pocket of his jeans, dropped on the floor by the side of the bed, oops) and then turn the ringer off. A dozen texts - what was going on? He rolls over on his back next to Blaine and thumbs through it.

_Marley: Oh my god Kurt what are you doing_

_Marley: Why didn’t you tell meeeee???_

_Marley: Pat is sending pictures if you want to make her stop but don’t make her stop_

_Marley: Kurt WHAT IS GOING ON??? you better be doing something good to not be answering_

_Marley: OHEMGEE ARE YOU DOING SOMETHING GOOD??_

Kurt has to smile at Marley’s enthusiasm - and, well, trust Pat to out them. There’s a text there from her, too.

_Pat T: Feel free to kill me in the morning. But ffs don’t fuck it up. I want more blackmail material._

He replies to Pat: I think the power of blackmail is the threat that you’re *going* to share said material with the world. Ship: sailed. And to Marley: _Fill you in when we get back. :)!_

His phone buzzes again as he snuggles back down under the covers. _Send pictuuuuures!_

_I don’t kiss and show ;)_ , he sends back. _ttyl have to go_

Kurt laughs softly at Marley’s reply, which comes almost instantly - a photo of her dog, giving the camera the mournfulest of eyes - and sets the phone back on the nightstand. Next to him, Blaine rolls over, and cracks open a bleary eye. “Wassofunny?” 

Kurt shifts onto his side,and plays with the edge of the blanket. “We’ve been caught.”

“Oh.” Blaine blinks a little more awake, and frowns. Frowning and tousle-haired and rumpled; Kurt wants to wrap him up and cover him with his body and press him into the mattress and never, ever leave this bed. “Is that a bad thing?”

Kurt reaches across the small space between then, and takes Blaine’s hand. Blaine clings to it, like he’s afraid Kurt’s going to pull it right back again. Kurt brushes a thumb across the back of his hand to soothe him. “I’m okay with it if you are.”

“Okay,” Blaine nods, and curls his fingers tighter through Kurt’s. His smile is small, but relieved. “Okay. Yeah - okay.”

Kurt has to kiss him, then, on the frown lines still lingering between his eyebrows, because of all the things that might have stopped him from wanting this - 

It might change things, at some point; not _them_ but how they interact with the world, and what the world expects of them. Kurt has never been very good at conforming to the world’s expectations, though, and now that it’s out in the open he sees no reason to hide the ways they fit together.

*

At breakfast, Johnny watches them beadily as they walk in - together, because, well, no way they can hide it now; watches while they grab food and sit down. It’s not until they really start squirming that Johnny gets up, and cuffs them both in the back of the head on his way to refill his coffee cup.

“Don’t be stupid,” is all he says, and Kurt and Blaine catch each other’s eyes and try not to laugh.

It’s cooler today than it was the last time they were at the cliff, and even though the horizon is white and grey they can see for miles, clear to the distant horizon. It’s the last day and schedules are starting to stretch thin, but the party last night feels like it cleaned everything out, like a good rainstorm, and people are happy and energetic and eager to get this right and get it done.

Kurt feels better, too, and can finally look out to sea without feeling something give inside him. It helps, too, that they’ve rewound the script, gone back in time, and it’s not the end, yet; Dave has more time with Brian, time to be free and young and in love, and whatever happens - whatever did happen - at least they have this.

*

Blaine’s already packed his room, but Kurt and luggage and clothes has never been a time-efficient combination, and late that night, after they’ve wrapped the last scene and packed up the trailer and eaten a last dinner together with the Oran Crew (Max is starting to talk about getting t-shirts made when they get back; Kurt approves) Blaine is out on the balcony with his laptop, and Kurt is facing his room and an empty suitcase.

They’ve hardly even been here two weeks, and Kurt packed mostly lightly, but even so it seems to take hours to get everything configured just right, and every time he turns around there’s something else lying out that needed to be packed under something else. He’s trying to fit his books into the front pocket of his suitcase (he’d flown in with them in his carry-on, and does not want to have to deal with that weight on the way back) and just getting frustrated, when his door slides open.

“Hey, what’re you doing?” Blaine slides the door closed again behind himself, and Kurt looks up irritatedly. 

“I can _not_ fit these all in here - and my shoes were still sandy and now there is sand everywhere in my suitcase and it’s going to ruin everything, and -”

“Hey. Hey,” Blaine says, and takes uncooperative book out of his hand. “I’ve got some extra room in my bags, let me take it.”

“Oh, god, really?” Kurt’s shoulders slump in relief. “That would be the best thing _ever,_ thank you.”

Blaine chuckles softly. “If I’d known that’s all it would take I’d have come in here an hour ago. I could _feel_ your stress vibes.”

Kurt lets his head fall forward onto Blaine’s shoulder. “I hate packing.”

“You’ll be fine,” Blaine rubs slow circles on his back, and Kurt lets himself relax into it. “Come on, without the books, how much do you have left to do?”

Kurt looks over Blaine’s shoulder at the rest of the room. “Um. Nothing, I think. Given that I do not think I can do anything about the sand at this point.”

“I really am sorry about that.”

Kurt shifts his head a little to get more comfortable. “It’s really fine. I didn’t exactly mind it at the time.”

Blaine kisses Kurt’s cheek, and Kurt can almost feel his smile. “So, since you’re all packed - come out and sit with me.”

“Don’t you have stuff to work on?”

“It’ll keep for now.” Blaine’s thumb strokes low on Kurt’s hip. “Come on, it’s our last night here.”

Blaine’s laptop is sitting next to his chair, and when he sits down he pulls Kurt down onto his lap, wrapping warm arms around his waist and pressing his face into Kurt’s shoulder. The city, spread out below them, is the same as it has been every night they’ve been here, but this, sitting here like this, snug in Blaine’s arms, isn’t. In Blaine’s arms Kurt feels safe, and warm, and secure.

“Do you want to go to bed?” Blaine murmurs in his ear after a long while. 

Kurt nods. “Yeah. I - yeah.”

There’s a weight settling over them again, something strangely solemn about the way Blaine takes him to bed, his hands cool as he undresses Kurt and then presses him into the mattress, mouth sweet and sad on Kurt’s throat, his shoulders, his chest. Kurt doesn’t want that, he doesn’t want sad, he is done with sad, burned it all out last night. When he tries to lighten the mood, though, hooking a leg around Blaine’s and rolling them, nipping Blaine’s collarbone on his way down his body, Blaine stops him. 

“Kurt,” he says quietly, and slips out from under him, leaving Kurt cold and confused until he pushes him back onto the pillows with a hand on his chest. He straddles Kurt’s hips and leans down to brush a kiss across his mouth. That’s it, that’s all he says, but when Blaine kisses him deeper and then slides down his body with a too-hot too-much look, Kurt knows Blaine is trying to tell him something.

Blaine licks down to his cock, laving broad strokes up theshalft and dropping his head to nuzzle and lick at Kurt’s balls. He feels like he’s melting when Blaine licks down farther, pressing tiny kisses to the hidden skin there, little laps of tongue that make Kurt shake and his muscles go liquid. It’s horribly intimate and Kurt can’t get enough of it, whining when Blaine pulls back for a moment to lick his lips before plunging back in, strong strokes of his tongue while Kurt bucks and whimpers. 

Kurt is sure he knows where this is going, he likes where this is going, but when Blaine pulls back and scoops a hand behind Kurt’s neck to lift him up for a kiss he whispers hot and broken into his ear, “Please fuck me.”

Kurt has to pull his head back to look Blaine in the eye, he hadn’t expected _that_ , but Blaine’s eyes are wide and dark and there’s no way to deny that Kurt wants it, not when his cock is pressed hot and aching against Blaine’s stomach and his hands of their own accord are pressing and kneading into his ass.

“Yeah. Yeah, please, yes, yes,” he pants, when Blaine dives back in to kiss him again. There’s shifting and arranging and there’s a moment when Kurt nearly comes on the spot from the heat of Blaine clenching around his fingers (“God, _Blaine_ ,” he pants, his forehead pressed into Blaine’s shoulder, everything too much to have the strength to hold his whole head up, while Blaine gasps beneath him), but there’s lube and condoms and then they’re there. Kurt shuffles forward on his knees, too desperate and wanting to take it as slow as maybe he should, but Blaine doesn’t seem to care, just digs his fingers into Kurt’s hips and throws his head back while Kurt presses in, and in, and in. 

Slow rolling thrusts that pick up speed, Blaine’s body opening for him, and Blaine’s eyes flutter closed as Kurt holds onto his arms and pushes them to a better angle, every nerve ending on fire and his whole body heat-flushed with pleasure. 

“Blaine, baby, open your eyes.” Kurt brushes a thumb against Blaine’s cheek and Blaine turns his head to kiss it, his eyes opening hot and blown-black. Kurt can see it when he starts to come, trembling and tight underneath and around him, coming on a gasp that sounds like his name and Kurt can’t hold back anymore, has to let go, everything white and pleasure-shocked with Blaine under and around and _with_ him. 

* 

It’s only been two weeks but it feels like so much longer when they’re sitting on the runway waiting for takeoff. Small mercies: his seat is next to Blaine and not some stranger, Blaine nodding sleepily and not really focusing on the notebook in front of him. 

They’d woken up together, too early (It would always be too early, for Kurt, he thinks; Blaine in his bed warm and real and there, he wants it always) and had lain there, still and quiet, just looking at each other and listening to the quiet sounds of people starting to move around in the hallway. 

They’d showered together - nothing naughty, not that there’d time for it anyway, just sharing hot water and space. Kurt had frowned in the mirror as he’d tried to fix his wet hair and Blaine had caught his hands and kissed him, pressing him up against the counter. Forget the bed - Kurt just wants to be in Blaine’s arms always, wherever, however. 

Kurt’s not sure if he’s ready to go back, to pick up the busy, familiar rhythm of life where they had left it off, or if he’d rather just stay here forever - or at least, longer. It’s probably good that he doesn’t get a choice in the matter; if circumstances are going to drive events in Kurt’s life, he is very good at steering them where he wants to go. 

Most of the time. 

There’s a rumble of engines as they taxi down the runway, and then the tug and lurch of gravity as they leave the ground. Blaine shifts in his seat and then takes Kurt’s hand as Kurt watches the streets and water and people fall away under them, down, down, as they crawl through the sky and over the horizon. 

__Part 4 posting Tuesday, February 26_ _


	5. Chapter 5

Around hour eight, Kurt starts to lose track of how much time they’ve spent in the air and at airports. After hour twelve, he stops wanting to try. The whole flight home dissolves into a travel-coma blur; too-small seats and airport bathrooms and bottled water and a messy stack of boarding passes. In Paris Kurt doesn’t even try to get out to see the city during their layover. Blaine stretches out next to him across three uncomfortable plastic terminal seats, and twitches restlessly in a half-sleep until Kurt puts a hand on his shoulder.

As they get closer and closer to home Kurt starts to worry, old habit and anxiety and they still haven’t really _talked_ about this, and Kurt’s not used to the idea that they might not even need to. But Blaine shows no signs of wanting to even stray from Kurt’s side, the few times they get a chance to, and when they’re at their last layover - three hours at JFK, and the familiarity of the place is so homy after so long away, and Kurt is so tired, that it makes Kurt teary with relief when they walk off the gangway - Blaine tugs his hand to get him to stand from where they and the rest of the crew had stashed their carry-ons.

“Where are we going?” Kurt asks, as he follows Blaine down the concourse.

The grin Blaine gives him is tired and a little nervous, but warm and familiar. “I just wanted to get you alone.”

“You didn’t get enough of me last week?” Kurt means it to be joking, and Blaine’s grin slips even more anxious, but he shakes his head and pulls Kurt into a quiet corner. He doesn’t quite look Kurt in the eye when he says, “I’ll never get enough of you.”

Blaine kisses him up against the pillar behind a bank of flight-arrival screens. The place is noisy and smells like airport and Kurt is grungy and nearly hungover from travel-weariness. But Blaine’s mouth is warm and tastes like coffee and orange and _him_ , and Kurt closes his eyes and lets himself melt into it, into Blaine’s mouth and Blaine’s hands where they’re gripping his arms, and the heat of his body, not touching, but close.

Blaine pulls back and rests his forehead against Kurt’s. Kurt makes himself breathe to slow his racing heart; he feels soothed and excited all at once by the touch of Blaine’s mouth, of his lips, and maybe it’s too soon but he wants it, so he clears his throat and then asks, “When we get back to L.A. - I don’t know if you want to just go and be by yourself and just crash out for a year, but - if you want to, I would - really like it if you came home with me.”

Blaine leans back so that they’re no longer touching, and Kurt looks up nervously at him. It’s the most he’s said, in words at least, about how much he’s come to want Blaine in his life.

“Kurt,” Blaine reaches out a hand and brushes Kurt’s hair off his forehead, looking awed and a little relieved. “I’d love to.”

“Really?” Kurt can’t keep the excited bounce out of his voice; there is relief, of course, but over the the knowledge that Blaine is not going to leave him on the Los Angeles tarmac is the deeper joy - and it is joy, through the relief and the stirring, exhausted arousal - that he will not be going home alone, that in just a few hours he will have Blaine in his own bed.

“Of course. Kurt.” Blaine kisses him again, and his name on Blaine’s lips sounds baffled, and happy, and relieved.

*

The last flight passes in a blur like the earlier ones had; exhausted, Kurt even manages to doze on Blaine’s shoulder for an hour as they’re flying over the Rockies. By the time they plane begins its final descent the energy level in the cabin is starting to pick back up, at least among the crew. After so many weeks away they’re almost home, and everyone is eager to see spouses and kids and familiar food.

Kurt and Blaine don’t raise many eyebrows when they leave from the baggage claim to catch a taxi together, and the cab ride home is quiet. Kurt holds Blaine’s hand across the empty seat between them and watches the too-familiar streets pass by outside. Not much has changed in the last two weeks, and it feels strange that his neighborhood should look so familiar when everything Kurt’s done has been anything but.

It feels less significant than it should, maybe, when Kurt unlocks his door and holds it open for Blaine to come in behind him. He’s never had a guy sleep over before that he wasn’t dating, and though he’s fairly sure that whatever he and Blaine are right now would qualify as dating, they still haven’t said it, and uncertainty isn’t something Kurt Hummel has ever let into his love life before. Still, there isn’t much room for doubt when Blaine stacks his bag neatly by the arm of Kurt’s couch and then pulls Kurt into a hug, wrapping him up tight and burying his face in the crook of Kurt’s neck.

Kurt pulls his fingers through Blaine’s hair and closes his eyes just to take in the moment - Blaine, in his arms, in his house, not a fleeting dream but something real, and something maybe, someday, something really solid. “Do you want to go to bed?” Kurt asks after several minutes have passed and they’re no longer so much holding each other as holding each other up.

Blaine nods into his shoulder, though his arms curl tighter around Kurt’s waist. “I don’t know how much - energy I’m going to have, though.”

Kurt smiles, though Blaine can’t see it. “That’s just fine. I just want to sleep with you.”

They leave their bags where they are and make their way upstairs; at the top of the stairs Kurt takes Blaine’s hand to lead him down the hallway, and Blaine squeezes his fingers back.

Blaine’s been in Kurt’s house before but never upstairs, and never in his bedroom, so while Kurt makes sure the bathroom is stocked for the very long, very hot shower he’s going to need when they wake up, Blaine sits on the bed and looks around curiously. From the bathroom doorway, Kurt stands and watches Blaine as he skims the titles on the bookshelf under the window.

“Twain?” Blaine arches an eyebrow as Kurt walks towards him, and stops to stand between his knees.

“He was angry, sarcastic, and years ahead of his time,” Kurt smirks, and rests his hands on Blaine’s shoulders.

“A role model of yours, then?” Blaine tips his head up to smile at him.

Kurt lets the smirk soften, and strokes his thumb across the join of Blaine’s shoulder and neck.

Blaine catches one of his hands and holds it between his. “Why are you angry?”

Kurt lets his hand tighten at the neck of Blaine’s shirt. There are so many ways he could answer that - so many ways he has answered it, over the years. But no one had ever asked outright, and Kurt had gotten so used to screaming the answer in their faces that he doesn’t know what to say with the question put to him directly.

“It was a long time ago,” he finally says, and slips his hand around to the back of Blaine’s neck to tip his face up for the kiss.

Kurt’s practically woozy with exhaustion by the time they finally pull back the covers and slip underneath them. He curls an arm around Blaine’s stomach and, face tucked safely into the back of Blaine’s neck, slides quickly into sleep.

*

When Kurt wakes up again it’s dark outside, and he squints at his clock to see if it’s late at night or early in the morning. Early morning - they’ve been asleep for about ten hours, and Kurt feels rested but in desperate need of a shower. He crawls out of bed to use the bathroom, but when he’s washing his hands he hears Blaine’s voice, sleep-fogged, call “Kurt?” from the bed.

“Right here, baby.” Kurt sits on the edge of the bed and brushes the hair back from Blaine’s face. “Sleep well?”

“Mhmm.” Blaine buries his face in his pillow and wriggles under the covers. “I like your bed.”

“I like you in my bed,” Kurt curls his fingers in Blaine’s hair and then hesitates. But Blaine just raises his head enough to crack an eye and give him a sleepy smile, and Kurt resumes his gentle stroking.

“I was thinking about taking a shower,” Kurt says, tracing the curve of Blaine’s ear with his finger. “Would you like to join me?”

“Do I have to get out of bed?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Alright.” Blaine pouts, but he shuffles up until he’s on his knees. “But only because you’re really gorgeous.” He lets his hand slide up Kurt’s bare hip, and smirks a little when Kurt shivers. “And I’m really gross.”

“Such a romantic,” Kurt smiles, and Blaine grins and kisses him.

*

Afterwards, in clean pajamas - Kurt digs a clean pair of flannel pants out of his drawer, and an extra pair for Blaine - they make coffee and toast and carry it back upstairs to eat in bed. There are things Kurt needs to do; the unpacked bags in the living room make him twitchy when he walks past them on his way to the kitchen, there is laundry to do and mail to sort and any number of minute tasks he has to do before they go back to work on Monday. But he just can’t find it in himself to care, not when Blaine slings a leg over his and nestles into his side as they sit in Kurt’s bed and drink coffee. He kisses Blaine’s forehead and then sets his mug aside, snuggling back down into the blankets. Work can wait.

“Going back to sleep?” Blaine’s smile is small, sweet, and he sets his own mug aside to settle down next to Kurt.

“Maybe.” Kurt hides a yawn in the edge of the blanket. “I thought I was awake, but then I got back into bed -”

Blaine wraps a warm arm around Kurt’s waist. “Sorry about that.”

“No you’re not.”

“I’m really not.” Blaine kisses his forehead, and then settles his head down on the pillow next to Kurt’s. For a long moment he just lies there, looking at Kurt. After everything they’ve done together it shouldn’t make Kurt flush but it does, that frank, open, assessment, like Blaine can look his fill because they don’t have any secrets between them.

But they do have secrets, or at least things they haven’t told or talked about, and as they lie there Kurt can feel the energy shifting around them as the sun starts to come up outside. It’s time. He’s just not sure how to start.

Finally, Blaine catches Kurt’s hand under the blankets, and presses a kiss to the back of it. “I’m not great at romance,” he says, and it’s the silliest and yet most honest kind confession, and Kurt has to kiss him for it.

“What do you mean?”

Blaine plays with Kurt’s fingers, and doesn’t look at his face. “I used to want it, when I was a kid. Big sweeping gestures, serenades, holding hands in the park, till-death-do-us-part. Every cliche you can imagine.” He grins, and it’s self-deprecating, but there’s an edge to it, something old and still hurting. “I just mean that - the hookup thing, the fling thing, it wasn’t something I set out to do.” Blaine’s picking at Kurt’s fingers with his thumb, and Kurt’s not sure what to ask, so he stays quiet while Blaine works out what to say next.

“It was fine when I was in high school, because high school romances don’t really last forever and there wasn’t anyone I was interested in, anyway. But that was fine, I was busy with school and the Warblers and I just figured - when I got out, when I got to college, that’s when I’d find my love story.

“And - lo and behold, my first week at UCLA. I met Alex.” Blaine’s smile is fond, reminiscent, and Kurt smiles to see it. “He was everything I’d ever dreamed about in high school - he was hot, he was smart, he was so kind, and he was as romantic as I was. Even more, maybe. Blaine’s eyes flick from their tangled hands to Kurt’s eyes, and there’s honesty there, but there’s also a little bit of fear. “He was a little like you, actually.”

“Mm.” Kurt smiles and tucks his head more comfortably into their shared pillow. “So what happened?”

“Freshman year was amazing. It sucked to leave him at the end of the year, but it was just going to be for the summer, and long-distance relationships are fun if they’re not for that long. We wrote _so_ many love letters”. Blaine’s mouth is wry, old amusement at his younger self. “But Alex was a year older than me, and he ended up doing an internship his junior year, somewhere overseas, fuck, I don’t even remember where. Not that it really matters.” He swallows, and Kurt can see the muscles in his throat bob. “I took it - poorly. I hated being lonely; I resented him being gone; I was _not_ good at keeping myself busy.” His mouth twists, and Kurt wants to kiss him on the unhappy frown of it, but Blaine is on a roll. “Until I found the perfect distraction.” He doesn’t look up this time, just keeps his eyes on their hands, and Kurt rubs his thumb over the heel of Blaine’s palm until he starts talking ago. “ _His_ name was Jason. Alex found out about it - of course he did, I was an idiot about the whole thing - and that was it, just like that, it was over. Goodbye romance. And I had no one to blame but myself.” Kurt’s heart clenches painfully; he knows just how stupid young-and-stupid can get, and how long it can hurt for.

Blaine goes on. “It turned out that there weren’t many guys interested in handholding in the park. There _were_ a lot of guys who were interested in me for the night or for a weekend, though. And - I knew, maybe, that I shouldn’t, knew that I’d been patient once and I’d gotten Alex out of it, so maybe I should try to be patient again. But I’d fucked that up, and I didn’t trust myself not to fuck up something like that in the future, so. Fake IDs and college parties and one-night-stands it was, then.”

Blaine’s voice gives a little just a little hitch, and Kurt scootches closer, and tucks an ankle between Blaine’s feet. “It turns out that flings are not great for your self-esteem. Or, maybe they are for some people’s. They weren’t for mine.” Blaine blinks, and holds Kurt’s hand tighter. “After a while I figured I wasn’t good enough for anything else - nobody seemed to want anything else from me anyway, and I have always been.” He swallows, and there’s a look on his face that Kurt can’t read, something resigned and proud and sad. “I have always been good at being what other people want me to be.”

Kurt doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just holds Blaine’s hand tighter, but something painful is twisting from his heart down into his lungs, scraping at the inside of his ribs.

“And then I met you.” Blaine finally looks up at Kurt again, and Kurt’s breath catches in his chest. “And you were everything I used to want, you are _gorgeous_ and talented and so so sure of who you are and what you want, and I just - I couldn’t help it. I was gone.”

“Really.” Kurt can’t help the smile, this is a serious moment but the muscles of his face can’t help it, and something warm is bubbling inside him.

“Really. But it had been so long and I was out of practice at romance, I didn’t know how to get you. So I was an idiot, again, and you walked away.”

“Blaine -” Kurt begins, but Blaine shakes his head.

“No, it’s okay. It was a wakeup call and I needed it. Thank you for yelling at me at that party, by the way.”

Kurt scrunches his nose. “I didn’t _yell_.”

Blaine raises an eyebrow. “No, not exactly. You just turned up that nose of yours and called me out and I felt about as big as a bug.”

“I really am sorry about that.”

“Yeah, well.” Blaine lifts a shoulder. “It’s not like I didn’t deserve it. And it got me Jamie, and maybe I hadn’t been good enough for a romance with you, but I was good enough for a romance with _him_ , the first one since Alex, and just - it changed everything. Made me think I might actually have a shot with you after all.” He smiles, gentle and happy and relieved, behind his eyes, and Kurt can’t believe it, hearing Blaine say these things. He’d wanted him for so long, and had had no idea.

And he’s not sure what to say, what to give Blaine now that Blaine has given him so much, so he just says, “more than a shot, really,” and wraps his arms around Blaine’s shoulders when he rolls over him.

*

When they wake up again it’s late morning, and between the jetlag and the going on twenty hours of sleep now Kurt actually feels like he might be able to face the day, so they get up and shower again, sticky from sex and sweaty from being tangled together under the blankets. Blaine offers to make them lunch, so he moves around Kurt’s kitchen while Kurt puts in loads of laundry and starts to sort through his accumulated mail, and thinks.

Normally, by the end of a trip like this - not that he’s ever been away on location for work like this, but still, the principal applies - he is sick of everyone and everything and needs to just hide from the world and everyone in it for a while. But when he carries a basket of clean laundry in to fold at the kitchen table while Blaine makes pasta sauce at his stove, he can’t imagine kicking Blaine out.

The afternoon wears on, though, and they have work again tomorrow and Blaine’s going to need to go back to his house at some point, and Kurt can’t stand the thought of letting him go yet. Finally, after they have dinner and wash the dishes and put the leftovers away and Kurt sees Blaine glance at the time, he reaches across the table and takes Blaine’s hand in his.

“So, I know I invited you over here to begin with, and you might be really sick of me by now, but - if you needed, you know, help with your laundry or something -?”

“With my laundry.”

“Well, you never know-”

“You have so little faith in me.” Blaine circles around the table, and stands between Kurt’s knees, hands still clasped together. “I really don’t think I’m going to get sick of you, Kurt Hummel. At least not before you get sick of me.”

“Oh.” Kurt smiles, and Blaine leans down to kiss him. “Good, then.”

*

Blaine does his own laundry, and Kurt snuggles into his side when they turn on the TV while he waits for the dryer to finish. It’s dark outside, again, and Kurt’s given up on trying to keep track of his body clock or the time here. During a commercial, Blaine picks up the remote and mutes the volume.

“So, work tomorrow.”

Kurt sighs and settles more comfortably against Blaine’s shoulder. He’s looking forward to going back to work - even a day away makes him miss Dave and that world - but he knows they’ve started the smallest kind of shitstorm, and he’s not sure he wants to face the scrutiny of the rest of the cast and crew yet. “Yeah.”

“Do you - want to. Hide it?”

“What?” Kurt sits up. “No. Why would I want that?”

Blaine shrugs uncertainly, and takes Kurt’s hand where it’s resting on his leg. “I know you’re big on privacy. I couldn’t even get much information out of Marley about you.”

Kurt smiles. “You were digging for information about me?”

Blaine shrugs, and there’s just a touch of color on his cheeks. “I was confused and just a little bit desperate. And you weren’t exactly forthcoming on what you wanted. I’m - sorry if that was weird.”

Kurt shakes his head and nestles back against Blaine. “No, I think it’s sweet. Sorry about that, I just - well. Most of the time it’s easier if I don’t give too much away.”

“...which is why I asked. I understand if you want to keep it private. This isn’t something that’s going to go unnoticed, if we don’t try to make it be. But we can, if you want it to be.”

“I think it might be a little late for that already,” Kurt says, and strokes his thumb over Blaine’s wrist, the lighter band of skin where Brian’s watch band rests. “Pat knows. Well, the rest of the Oran crew, actually, and I know Marley does. Despite Marley’s loyal discretion, I think the cat might be too far out of the bag already. But - even if it weren’t,” he says, carefully but determinedly, watching Blaine’s face. “I wouldn’t want to keep it secret. Dave and Brian have to hide and - we don’t.”

“God, Kurt,” Blaine says, and there’s a look on his face that Kurt can’t decipher, awe and surprise and something too-deep to translate. “Where were you - well. Where have you been my whole life?”

Kurt can feel the blush, and he ducks his head into Blaine’s shoulder to hide it. “And you say you’re not good at romance.”

“I’m getting better.” The hand that’s not holding Kurt’s comes up and strokes through Kurt’s hair, gentle and soothing and sending lazy sparks through his skin. “I’ve got a really good teacher.”

Kurt hums, and it turns into a yawn, and Blaine chuckles and wraps his arm around Kurt’s shoulder and pulls him into a tight half-hug. “Well, if we’re not hiding it, then there’s no reason for you not to stay over?” His eyes are bright and hopeful, and since they left Kurt’s house Kurt has had no intention of letting this night end any other way.

“No reason at all,” he says, and Blaine kisses him on his smile.

*

They take separate cars to the lot - Blaine has another meeting for one of his projects that afternoon, and Kurt desperately needs to go grocery shopping, so carpooling, tempting as it is, isn’t going to be practical. They park next to each other, though, and walk through the lot hand-in-hand.

They’re intercepted by Johnny, walking in from his own car. He gives their linked hands a raised eyebrow, and then looks between them.

“So this is really a thing, now, is it.”

Blaine flushes and looks at Kurt, and it’s like being in New York answering his dad’s questions about _who is this guy who’s in all these facebook pictures, Kurt?_ all over again.

“Yeah.”

“Well. Continue being non-idiots, and I’m happy. Don’t let the rest of the guys psych you out, giving you a hard time is part of their job description.”

Kurt’s just beginning to shape the words “Thanks, Johnny,” and a smile when he puts a hand up and smirks. “And keep the sex out of the trailers. Save that stuff for your own time.” And then he winks and walks away, leaving Kurt sputtering and Blaine beet red next to him.

*

They do get a hard time, but there really isn’t any malice behind it. Marley runs up to them and squeals and hugs them both and demands to be filled in on _Everything, oh my god, Kurt, Blaine, why didn’t you_ tell _me?_ It’s good to see her, and the rest of the crew, and be back on the familiar soundstage and familiar trailers, even though Kurt blushes all the way through his hairstyling trying not to think about what Johnny (or anyone else) might think they get up to left on their own.

Today is a bit of a rewind, and it’s a relief after the intensity of Algeria to slip back into something light and easy and fun. It’s easy in their relationship, Dave and Brian’s, and all they want is some time alone together...

*

It’s easy to find the time to be together - easy as anything to sit in each other’s tents or in a jeep and talk and talk and talk. It’s harder to be _alone_ , in the way they are quickly learning they very much want to be alone, without any chance of interruption. There are too many people, too many things to do, and too much suspicion to arouse if they aren’t careful.

So they plan. Opportunities are everywhere, they must be, all they have to do is find them -

It’s easy, once they get down to it. Brian is a notorious lightweight, and when he starts to get sloppy one night out with everyone everyone rolls their eyes and lets him get on with it. They’re far more glad than suspicious when Dave offers to get him back to his tent, get him out of the way, he’ll just cause trouble left like this -

Brian is giggling drunkenly when Dave scoops an arm around his waist to “help” him walk back to his tent. He sounds so happy that Dave can’t help but to join in, and they must sound like a pair of loons. Neither of them are actually drunk but by the time they reach Brian’s tent Dave feels like it, careless and light and happy as they stagger through the flap together and fall onto Brian’s cot, laughing into each other’s shoulders while their hands catch and hold.

Brian’s hands find his face, and then they’re kissing, fierce and hot and fast because they have time, yes, but not forever, and damn if they’re going to let any of it go to waste.

Dave’s hand flails, though, when Brian starts to push him backwards, down onto the cot, and he catches his own weight and blinks hot and dazed up at Brian.

“What are you -”

“It’s okay,” Brian lifts a hand and brushes fingertips across his cheek. “Have you ever -”

Dave knows what he’s being asked, and the blood rushes hot to his face, and to, and to -

“No,” his voice is small in his own ears. Brian brushes his thumb over his eyebrow.

“It’s okay,” he whispers, and kisses him again, and it’s easy as anything to lose himself in his mouth, in his touch. “Let me show you.” He pushes again, and this time Dave lets both of their weights fall.

*

They’d left the lot separately, at different times - Kurt to go grocery shopping, Blaine for another meeting for one of his endless projects - and so Kurt doesn’t expect to see him until tomorrow on set. He’s just deciding what movie to watch to keep himself awake until it’s a decent time to go to bed when his phone buzzes with a text.

_So, I don’t mean to be presumptuous, but..._

Kurt’s heart flips as he texts back. _Come over whenever you want. I’m just watching movies :)_

The answer comes back almost immediately. _Well, I *really* don’t mean to be presumptuous, but..._ And then there’s a knock on Kurt’s door.

Blaine is standing there, looking sheepish and a little shy. Kurt stands there with one hand on the door, and looks at him while Blaine looks back, a little nervous.. Kurt reaches out a hand, and touches the collar of Blaine’s shirt, and then runs his fingers over Blaine’s shoulder.

“Come in, stranger.”

Blaine kisses him in the entryway, soft and sweet, and Kurt fumbles to lock the door before he lets his hands wander where they want, across Blaine’s shoulders, down to his waist.

“You don’t ever have to feel presumptuous about coming over,” he says softly when Blaine finally pulls back. Blaine just smiles, and leans in, and kisses him again.

*

After that they don’t even pretend to try to spend nights apart. Whether they carpool or whether they meet up separately after Blaine’s done with what Kurt’s started calling his extracurriculars for the day, there is always a late dinner or drink or even hot chocolate together as the weather takes a turn for the cool again, and then nights together tangled together in one or another of their beds.It was one thing to talk in vague terms about being together in L.A. once they got home from Algeria; it’s another thing to actually be together, to look forward to seeing Blaine at home every night, to plan meals together and cook together, to get their clothes so mixed up that they don’t even bother trying to keep separate drawers at each other’s houses and skip right to jumbling laundry and invading closet space.

Maybe it’s moving too fast, but Kurt can’t bring himself to slow it down. One weekend Blaine is away for a recording session, and Kurt spends it bouncing around his own empty house. It was always enough for him before, but now it feels cold and empty without Blaine’s energy and warmth to fill it up. When Blaine gets back late Sunday night Kurt pushes him against the door for the kiss, and then takes him straight to bed. Blaine doesn’t remotely seem to mind.

Work is getting even harder, longer hours and longer weeks. Kurt had always thought that having a boyfriend was something that made having a job harder - someone else making claims on his time, always hard decisions to make about who got his evenings, his boy or his job - and it probably makes things easier that they do actually work together. But on the days they both stagger home too tired to even think about cooking there’s a warm body next to him in bed, a cool hand to smooth over his forehead and strong fingers to work the kinks of the day out of his muscles, and everything is easier, because Blaine is there.

They finally go to the farmer’s market together, and spend a glorious Sunday morning browsing through fruit and bread and everything else there is to explore, and when they get back to Kurt’s house Kurt chops fruit for salad and Blaine makes coffee and warms up the molasses cookies. They eat out on the porch and then crawl back into bed, where Kurt spends a long time mapping out Blaine’s body with his mouth and his hands until Blaine is stretched out and panting beneath him. Kurt slicks both of them and then straddles Blaine’s hips and rides him while Blaine pants and flails a little beneath him, hands clutching hips while Kurt’s back bows forward, like his body can’t stand to be farther away from Blaine than it has to be.

Afterward Blaine kisses Kurt and pulls the blankets up around Kurt’s shoulders before he crawls out of bed to grab his tablet. Kurt tries not to pout, but it’s hard, they’ve been working eleven-hour days and have hardly even had the time to make out in bed before they fall asleep.

Blaine must see the look on his face, because he hesitates with a knee up on the bed, his tablet in one hand. “Not today?” Kurt asks. He knows Blaine has deadlines, knows he worries and does too much and never feels like he does enough. But they rarely have _time_ and he hopes that maybe Blaine needs the time they do have together as much as Kurt does.

Blaine frowns, but then he puts the tablet aside and slides under the covers with Kurt, rolls Kurt’s body under his and presses his face into Kurt’s chest. “Not today.”

Kurt strokes his fingers through Blaine’s hair, and wonders just how far they’ve come, and how far they have to go.

*

“I think we should tell her.” Brian’s voice is steady, but he’s very obviously making it be steady.

“Tell who?”

“Helen.”

“...why?”

Brian’s hands catch Dave’s hands when he goes to pull away. “But _why?_ Brian? Why? No! It’s dangerous no she can’t know, no one can know-”

“Dave!” Brian strokes across the back of Dave’s wrists, and the effect is instantaneous, calming. “She suspects something already. And we need an ally - somebody who can cover for us. She could do that.”

“But -”

“But what?”

“She’s your -” He can’t bring himself to say the word “fiancée,” it hurts to much, what of Brian he’ll never have.

Brian catches his hands, leads him back to sit down on his cot, still rumpled. “She’s not,” he says, and it takes Dave a moment to catch on.

“What?”

“We’re not engaged. My parents think we are, _her_ parents think we are, but. We’re not. We’re friends - close, but, friends. It was easier for both of this way, though.” He pulls at Dave’s hands, and Dave doesn’t know what to say. It doesn’t change anything, he knows, it doesn’t let them be anything more than they are, and it certainly doesn’t mean Brian and Helen are any less than anything they ever were, but -

“Would she understand?” he asks, his voice small.

Brian laces their fingers together, traces the bare length of Dave’s with his thumb. “I think she already does. She knows - well.” He smiles, and it’s a little rueful, a little scared. “There aren’t that many reasons for us _not_ to be engaged. And she’s a smart girl.”

“Do you ever wish -” Dave starts, but the question chokes in his throat, stings his eyes.

“What?” Brian asks gently.

“Do you ever wish you - could - be engaged to her? Everything would be - so much easier -”

Brian’s quiet a long time, and when Dave finally works up the courage to look at him his eyes are soft and too-bright. “I used to,” he says, and lifts a hand to brush Dave’s cheek. Dave nuzzles into it, warmth and callouses on his skin like comfort and electricity. “But then I wouldn’t have you.”

“I love you.” It’s the first time either of them have said it, even though Dave knows it’s true, has seen the look in Brian’s eyes for weeks now and known what it meant.

Brian drags a thumb over Dave’s cheek, swiping away the tears of too-much-feeling that are falling. “I love you too,” he says, and the kiss is gentle, and welcoming, and home.

*

_”Hey, Kurt!”_

“Hi, Dad.” Kurt keeps his voice low, and scratches his fingers through Blaine’s hair. They’d had plans to watch a movie tonight, but Blaine had passed out on the couch right after dinner and Kurt hadn’t had the heart to wake him up again.

_“How you doing, kiddo?”_

“Tired. Good, but tired.” As if to emphasize the point, Kurt has to hide a yawn before he keeps going. “Our hours are getting crazy, but things are going really well. How’s Ohio?”

_“Oh, same as always, you know how it goes. The snow is finally starting to melt, so Carole’s started digging up her garden again.”_

Kurt looks out the window, to where his shrubs are flowering; being on the west coast is still profoundly weird, in so many ways.

“Are you guys still planning on coming out for Easter?”

_“I am, yeah. And maybe Finn, but Carole’s going to have to work, they’re short-staffed at the hospital again. Think you’ll be ready for us?”_

Kurt smiles into the phone, and wraps a curl at Blaine’s temple around his finger. “For you? Always. If Carole was coming I’d have to get my cleaning supplies out of deep storage and actually disinfect the bathroom.”

_“You say that like you don’t clean your house every week anyway.”_

“Yeah, yeah. Actually, um. There’s - something I want to tell you.”

_“Anything, Kurt.”_ Kurt has to smile, at the easy affection there, at the way his dad hardly braces himself at statements like that anymore, because there hasn’t been any need to for a long, long time.

“Blaine and I, we -” It’s not like his dad doesn’t know about Blaine; Kurt could hardly have kept that a secret from his dad, and maybe Burt is wary about Kurt dating a Hollywood co-star but he hasn’t said a word against it, and Kurt appreciates more than he can say not having to hide anything from his dad. Well, almost anything... “Um. When you’re here. Blaine might be around alot, he - we -”

_“Kurt?”_

“Yeah?” Kurt’s voice squeaks, just a little,and he tugs tug a bit too hard on Blaine’s hair. Blaine gives a sleepy grunt and Kurt’s afraid he’s woken him, but he just nuzzles his face further into Kurt’s thigh.

_“Spit it out, buddy.”_

“Right. Um. Well. We’re - living together. Sort of.”

He can hear the wry amusement in his dad’s voice, and it’s so much better than any brand of hesitation or disapproval. _“Sort of?”_

“I mean it’s not - official, he still has his house and I still have mine but we. Yeah,” he concludes lamely, and can hear his dad’s thoughtful hum on the other end of the line. “I hope - I wanted you to know before you came out here.”

_“He making you happy?”_

“So happy, Dad,” Kurt says, and he strokes a thumb across Blaine’s cheek, creased from the pattern of the couch, and so dear. He feels so lucky and so full, of family and love. His life really is incredible.

_“Then you tell him I’m looking forward to meeting him. In the meantime, take care of yourself, Kurt. I’ve seen your schedule, don’t go running yourself ragged.”_

“I’m doing my best.”

_“You always do. Love you, Kurt.”_

“Love you too, Dad, G’night.”

After he ends the call Kurt sits there on the couch, watching the quiet street outside the window and petting gently through Blaine’s hair until he wakes up enough to grumble and roll onto his other side, draping an arm across Kurt’s knees.

“Welcome to the world, sweetheart,” Kurt says, and smiles when Blaine frowns and cracks an eye open against the dim lighting of the living room.

“Is’t time to go to bed?”

“Just about. Do you have everything ready for tomorrow?”

Blaine squints and pushes himself upright on the couch. “I think so - yeah.” He seems to be thinking through it. “Yeah. I just need to grab the proofs from my place, but I can do that on the way in tomorrow.”

“You’ve still got that meeting tomorrow night?”

“Yeah.” Blaine yawns, and slumps back into Kurt’s shoulder. “Sorry. I know I haven’t been around that much recently.”

“It’s okay.” Kurt resumes his gentle stroking through Blaine’s hair; it’s so soft and thick and he doesn’t think he could resist touching it if he tried. “Things won’t be this crazy forever.”

“Yeah. Weird to think about. I can’t imagine not being Brian.”

Kurt hums an agreement; they still have weeks and weeks of filming left, but they’re past the halfway point already, and it’s truly bizarre to think of a day when he’ll wake up and just not be Dave anymore.

“It’s like that on every project, though,” Blaine says. “You get so - immersed into it, it takes over your life, and you can’t imagine being anywhere else, and then one day - it’s over. And you go back to square one and start again.”

“On - every project?” Kurt asks, because he’s mostly sure but he does still have his doubts, and Blaine’s offhand comment is stirring every one of them awake.

Blaine nods, but catches Kurt’s jaw in his hand so he has to look at him. “You’re not a project, though.”

“Even though -”

“It’s over when we want it to be, Kurt,” Blaine says firmly, but even his voice catches a little on “over.” “Enough of my life is on a schedule - I’m not putting you on one, too. Now,” he says, sitting back on his heels while Kurt just blinks up at him and has no idea what to say, everything too full and too felt. “Let’s get into bed before I pass out on you again.”

Kurt nods, because he doesn’t trust his voice, and takes Blaine’s hand to help him up when he offers it.

*

_Endicott Beach,_ Marley’s text to both of them reads. _Seven o’clock. Blaine, bring your guitar. Kurt, bring Blaine._

It’s been awhile since they’ve gotten to take a break, as a whole crew, and as they lug coolers and instruments across the sand (Blaine, apparently, is not the only guitar player of the bunch) the party atmosphere has already begun, with shouting and laughter drifting out across the open water.

It’s the first time Kurt’s been near the water since Algeria, and on the drive over he’d worried, a little, that it would dampen the fun, the water and what it had come to mean to Dave. But then Blaine had twisted up the radio and held Kurt’s hand across the console, and Kurt had felt silly for worrying.

Standing on the cool sand, though, as the sun goes down behind the dunes, Kurt wonders if he was right to worry after all. The sea is so big, not the placid Mediterranean but the vast rolling Pacific, and it feels even more infinite than it had in Algeria. He feels almost agoraphobic, so aware of the vast water and the endless sky, until Blaine slips his arms around Kurt’s waist and rests his chin on his shoulder while he’s talking to Cassie and Max, and grounds him again.

After the sun sets they light a fire and the flames shrink the dark, reduce it to just a shell just outside of their little circle. There’s laughter and drinks passed around and Kurt leans against Blaine’s knee where he’s sitting on a cooler with his guitar and relaxes into it, cool air off the water and the warmth of the fire, the happy energy of the group and Blaine, warm and solid under his hands.

A little later Blaine passes Marley his guitar and nudges Kurt’s shoulder gently. “Want to take a walk?”

Kurt wraps the blanket around his shoulders like a cloak - it’s cold outside the nest he’s made for himself- and Blaine wraps an arm around his shoulders and pulls him close to his side while they walk down to the water’s edge. They’re just above the line of the tide when stops and tugs him down again to sit on the sand, and wraps his arms around Kurt to hug him to his chest.

“If you were cold, you know, you could have brought your own blanket,” Kurt grumbles, when Blaine unwraps him to wrap it around them both.

“Yeah, but you’re much warmer.” Blaine presses a kiss to the back of Kurt’s neck, and catches his hands where they’re holding the blanket tight.

“Blaine?” Kurt asks, after a long moment has passed. The sounds of the rest of the group are drifting over the sand, and they’re alone for now but he’s not sure how long that will last, and he wants to have this conversation before there’s anyone else around to hear, or distract.

“Mmm?” Blaine lifts his head off of Kurt’s shoulder. It sounds like he’d almost fallen asleep.

“Why’d you bring me here?”

“Did you ever read _A Separate Peace_?”

“Is that the one about the boarding school from the fifties where the one kid is totally in love with the other kid, and tries to kill him?”

“...close enough, yeah,” Blaine chuckles. “Somehow I got through all of high school without catching onto that particular subtext.”

“Really.”

Blaine wraps his arms tighter around Kurt’s middle. “Yeah. Anyway though, remember the bit where they sleep overnight on the beach, and Gene wakes up and watches Finny and thinks about how he’s like Lazarus?”

“Vaguely.”

“Well.” Blaine tucks his chin over Kurt’s shoulder, and looks out at the rolling waves with him. “I wanted you to know - without the vaguely sadistic, homicidal undertones - that you will always be my Lazarus.”

Kurt’s vision is suddenly blurry, and he has to turn his head to scrub his eyes on the blanket. Blaine keeps talking, his voice a warm comforting hum that Kurt can feel, pressed all along his back the way he is. “I know we haven’t talked about it, and I know that it can be hard. And - it’s probably going to get harder.” His palms press more firmly into Kurt’s stomach, like Kurt is grounding Blaine as much as Blaine is Kurt. “I’m not letting you go anywhere. Okay?”

Kurt nods, because his throat isn’t working properly anymore, and everything is glittering through the dampness in his eyes. “Okay.”

“And - Kurt?” Blaine’s voice is so small that Kurt can barely hear it.

“Yeah?”

“Please don’t let me go anywhere either.”

Kurt’s eyes suddenly sting, and he grips Blaine’s hands tightly. “I won’t.”

 

*

When Kurt wakes up, Blaine’s side of the bed is empty. There’s light in the hallway drifting up from downstairs, though, and the soft sound of a piano.

Kurt wraps a robe around himself and finds Blaine at the piano bench, hands curled around the keys, eyes closed as he picks out notes in the stillness. He checks the clock on the bookshelf - well past midnight.

“Your burst of inspiration couldn’t wait until morning?”

Blaine jolts out of whatever reverie he’d been in, and gives Kurt a tired smile over his shoulder. “Oh, hey. I didn’t mean to wake you up, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Kurt sits down on the bench next to Blaine, which scootches over to make room for him. “What are you working on?”

“Credits song,” Blaine presses a few keys, and lets the notes hang suspended in the air for a few seconds before he takes his foot off the pedal. “I wish it was a burst of inspiration. It was more a lack of inspiration keeping me up - I’m starting to worry I won’t finish this in time.”

“Of course you will.” Kurt flips a page over on the stand. “You’ve made so much progress already.”

“Yeah, but -”

“Shh, no buts.” Kurt knows how Blaine can get, when he gets stuck in his head, determined that something he’s been working on for weeks and months just isn’t going to work, and he doesn’t want to lose Blaine down that spiral tonight. “Where are you stuck?”

Blaine sighs, and his shoulders slump. “I just can’t get the chorus right. The verses are fine, but if the chorus doesn’t work the whole thing is going to be off, and -”

“Hey, hey.” Kurt picks up a pencil and starts sketching notes on the page. “You were humming this in the shower the other day. Why aren’t you using it?”

Blaine watches Kurt’s hand on the page, frowning. “You listen to me in the shower?”

Kurt just gives him an arch look, and spots of color actually appear on Blaine’s cheeks. Yes, Kurt listens to Blaine in the shower, and not just when he’s mindlessly singing, and they both are well aware of the fact. Blaine clears his throat and goes on. “Well, I, um. Wasn’t sure if it would work. And it doesn’t fit with some of the stuff I had earlier, and Jaya really liked that, so I don’t want to scrap it.”

“Which bits?”

“At the beginning, there -” Blaine points, and Kurt scratches Xs through the verses. “Hey! Kurt!”

“Relax, if you hate it you can always go back and add it back in, but, here -” Kurt gives up on writing in the notes, it’s taking too long, so he nudges Blaine further down the bench so he can center himself on the keyboard and starts playing, their thighs pressed together. “You want it to be like - this.”

He presses the keys, experimentally at first and then more surely, as he works what’s on the page in with what he knows has been in Blaine’s head, and some of what’s been in his own. It’s slower than what Blaine has written, deeper and a little sadder, a little angry, and Kurt knows that it’s right for the characters even if it’s not what the studio would have in a million years chosen. “There,” he says, ending in a little happier flourish, and turns to face Blaine. It’s _always_ the music. “What about that?”

“How did you - Kurt.” Blaine is staring at Kurt, at his hands, like he’s never seen him before. But - no, that’s not quite right, because then Blaine drags his eyes up to Kurt’s, and those eyes have seen Kurt before, they _know_ him. “ _Kurt,_ “he says again, like a question, like an answer, and Kurt’s not sure how to react.

“Is - it okay? It’s a little intense, but -”

“I love you.” The words fall of Blaine’s mouth, like he’s been saving them, like he’s just been waiting for a moment like this to realize, to see -

Kurt knows how he feels, sees his happy surprise, the soul-deep crack in his chest opening up, flooding in with light and warmth, because he’s feeling it too, and everything in his heart right now is mirroring back to him in Blaine’s wide-shocked eyes. Kurt lets himself smile, feels it threaten to crack his face with how wide it is. His hands trembling on the keys; he curls them in his lap. “I love you too.”

“Play it again for me?” Blaine’s voice is a little scratchy. He picks Kurt’s hands up and puts them back on the keys, but keeps his own hands there, too, his fingers resting along the backs of Kurt’s.

“Okay.” Kurt smiles, takes a breath, and starts to play.

*

_Part 5 posting on Thursday, February 29th_


	6. Chapter 6

There were vineyards in Algeria but there hadn’t been time there, to do this, and almost silly to even try when they have the entirety of California wine country at their disposal. It feels like going on vacation, to take off for the day again in the caravan of filming equipment, in uniform with Blaine at his side.

*

The vineyard is lush and green and cool, and they’re still high from the rush of the drive to the cliff when Dave pulls over the Jeep at the edge of the field.

“What are you -? Brian asks in confusion, but Dave puts the jeep into park and leans over to tug on his collar. “No one around to see,” he says, and Brian groans as Dave kisses him, surrounded by blue sky and green leaves and the rustle of the wind.

*

There are vineyards not far from where they live, too, and the day out on location gave Blaine _ideas_. He makes plans and gets Kurt up early and drives them out to the edge of the city. Kurt pretends to be grumpy but he’s not, really, he can’t be, with the high blue sky overhead and the hills rolling lush and green in front of them. 

“What are you doing?” he asks, checking the GPS when Blaine pulls the car over on a little turnoff. “I don’t think we’re -”

“There’s no one around, Kurt,” Blaine says, a gleam in his eye, and this, this is the ridiculous man Kurt is in love with, and he has no regrets.

Brian and Dave’s makeout session had ended with a tasteful fade to black and Johnny cracking jokes at their expense while Kurt straightened out his shirt and scowled. Kurt and Blaine, though, are under no such restrictions. It gets hot and heavy fast, and Kurt is aware that his shirt is unbuttoned and hanging off his shoulders while he gets his hands on Blaine’s pants to unfasten them. There are hungry, messy kisses and it’s rushed and fast and so glorious: handjobs across the gearshift like they’re teenagers, and Kurt has never been so in love. 

*

Dave has noticed Paul around, has seen him in a few shows and liked listening to him when he’s played, always something a little lighter and faster than the pieces he himself usually picks. Paul has never seemed to notice him, before, though, until one night he finds them at the bar, Dave and Brian together, and with one up-down sweep of his eyes makes the hair on Dave’s arms stand on end.

“Dave, isn’t it?” Paul asks, his grin wide and his hand, when he offers it, rough.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Dave says, and smiles. Next to him, Brian bristles.

*

Kurt pulls the blanket onto his lap with more force than is probably necessary, and folds the script back with enough force to bend the brads holding it together. Fucking _Dave._ What the hell is he doing, why would he ever look at anyone else, why is Paul even catching his eye - 

The door bangs open and Blaine comes in, dropping his bag by the door and kicking off his shoes. “Hi, honey, I’m home!”

Kurt tips his head back to watch him over the back of the couch. “Hey, you. How was rehearsal?”

“Good. Long. I think we’re almost done with the heavy lifting for the recording - we should be able to start editing next week.”

“Sounds great.”

“Mhmm.” Blaine leans over the back of the couch, and Kurt lifts his chin for the kiss. “What are you working on?”

“Scene for tomorrow,” Kurt grumbles, while Blaine circles around the couch to sit next to him. 

“What’s coming up? I haven’t even had a chance to look yet.”

“Fucking _Paul._ ” Kurt snaps the script pages flat. 

“Hey, I thought I had dibs on that,” Blaine nudges Kurt’s side, but the joke doesn’t make things any better. Kurt sighs heavily. “Hey,” Blaine leans into his side. “What’s wrong?”

“I just don’t _understand_ why he’d do something like that. He loves Brian - why is he looking at Paul? What does he _see_ in him?”

Blaine takes the pages from Kurt’s hand and skims through them. “An opportunity, maybe? Dave’s never had a chance to be with anyone but Brian - maybe the change is appealing. Plus, he is really hot.”

Kurt tries to smile, but it comes off as more of a grimace. Blaine turns to look at him and frowns thoughtfully. “This is really getting to you, isn’t it.”

Kurt nods. “I just - hate what he’s doing, and I don’t understand _why_ he’s doing it, and I have to stand up tomorrow and actually _do_ it without having any idea why and just - it’s going to be a disaster.”

Blaine pulls his bottom lip between his teeth as he studies the script pages. “Would it help to remember that it’s not - this is going to sound bad but I do mean it well, I swear - remember that it’s not about you? You don’t have to understand Dave, you just have to be him.”

Kurt just gives him a blank look. “How can I be someone I don’t understand?”

Blaine gives a tired smile, and knocks his knee against Kurt. “Just remember being fourteen and really fucking confused. I find that occasionally helps.”

Kurt ducks his head and chuckle ruefully. “Okay, yeah. But I was way over my confused phase by the time I was fourteen.”

“Were you now.”

“Yup.” Kurt grins. “Twelve, now -”

Blaine smiles wider. “I’d give a lot to have seen you at thirteen and fierce.”

“Just ask my dad. I’m sure he’d be happy to show you pictures.”

“Oh, is it settled then?”

“Yeah, he’s coming out for Easter. Carole and my brother can’t make it, but Dad’s coming in Friday afternoon - I’m going to go to the airport to meet him, Johnny already gave me the evening off.”

“And - do you want me to - I mean -” Blaine swallows. “Should I come over at - some point?”

“Relax,” Kurt pats his knee, and wishes he could follow the same advice. “I told him about you. And - that you’ll be here for the weekend, actually.” Kurt is twenty seven years old, admitting to his live in boyfriend that they are live in boyfriends should not be as embarrassing as this. 

“...Really.”

“Yes, really. He says he’s looking forward to meeting you.”

“ - In an I’m-interested-to-meet-the-guy-my-firstborn-son-is-dating sort of way or and I-can’t-wait-to-threaten-to-break-his-kneecaps sort of way?”

“Interested. I promise.” Kurt kisses Blaine’s cheek, and brushes a thumb over the scruff there. “He’s not the kneecap breaking type. Just relax, it’s going to be fine.”

Blaine takes a deep breath and seems to steal himself. “Okay. I’m going to try to put off freaking out for a little while, then.” He taps the script again. “I know it’s hard. But just remember - Dave’s not you. You’re not responsible for what he does. Just for telling his story. No one’s going to blame you for anything - so don’t blame yourself.”

Kurt slumps further back into the couch. “Easy for you to say, Mr. Wise Acting Sage.”

Blaine tips his head onto Kurt’s shoulder, his curls tickling Kurt’s chin. “You’re a natural, babe. You’re going to be just fine.”

“Dave’s just so - he’s just so there all the time. He has been for so long, all I have to do now is just reach out and he’s _there_. And I don’t know what to do when he just feels so wrong, I don’t want him _in_ me - ”

“Hey, hey.” Blaine catches his flailing hand and holds it tightly. “Just do your best. And just remember - he’s not really you.”

Blaine kisses him and Kurt tries to relax into it, but somehow that piece of advice seems like the wrongest thing of all.

*

It’s mostly a disaster.

Blaine’s not even on set today, and Kurt hadn’t realized how used he’d gotten to having him always around, to talk with and just be with in between takes. Without his familiar, easy presence Kurt just feels even more untethered, like he’s being disloyal to him _and_ lying to him. 

Charlie is sweet, Charlie is funny. Charlie is in all probability actually straight but Kurt can’t forget how it felt, after his disastrous first date with Blaine, how it felt to see Blaine laughing and flirting with him. Kurt also can’t forget Blaine and Alex and _his_ disastrous ending to his first relationship. He’s not afraid of Blaine being unfaithful now, he’s _not_ , but it doesn’t make it any easier to step into Charlie-Paul’s arms and let him sweep Dave off his feet, just a little. Dave looks across the room and sees someone handsome and quick and fun and exciting; Kurt looks around the room and sees someone who isn’t Blaine, and can’t.

It’s stupid; it’s borderline unprofessional; it’s certainly well into the idiotic territory Johnny had warned them away from when they’d first gotten together. Kurt’s on the verge of ruining his scenes because he can’t get over his feelings for his co-star, and the sheer stupidity of it is not helping him feel any better about any of it.They’re not even long scenes; they’re certainly not hard, all things considered, but the take numbers are running up into the double digits now and Kurt just feels awful. 

At lunch, he tucks himself into the back corner of the costume trailer and calls Blaine and tries not to cry at the relief it is to hear his voice.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Blaine sings softly into the phone, while Kurt slumps down to the floor and fidgets with the hem of a silky white dress. “Where’s that Hummel confidence?”

“Probably wherever I lost my brain. And that dimension where all the socks disappear to.”

Blaine chuckles, and Kurt has to grin weakly through the damp eyes. “That’s my Kurt. I know it’s hard, but you can do it, honey. You’ve got all afternoon - just forget about this morning, and go kick some ass.”

Kurt wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. “Okay, I’ll try. And Blaine - thanks.”

Kurt can hear the smile in Blaine’s voice. “Of course, Kurt. Look, I’ve got to go now, but I’ll see you tonight. Break some serious legs, okay?”

“Okay. I love you.”

“Love you too, babe.”

When the call ends Kurt slumps his head into his hands. Blaine makes it sound so _easy_ , and all Kurt is is a newbie playing in the big leagues for the first time. 

*

Kurt’s walking back to their trailer that evening - the afternoon, while not a resounding success, had at least not been as unmitigated disaster as the morning had been, and Kurt has at least some of his self-respect back - when his phone chirps in his pocket. 

_Um, so. How flexible are Easter plans?_

Kurt’s heart sinks - Blaine’s gotten too scared to meet his dad and wants out, Blaine’s gotten cold feet and wants out altogether -

He is being absolutely ridiculous. The day is getting to him. Kurt tells himself to get a grip and texts back.

_As flexible as we need them to be. Why, what’s up?_

_My brother’s coming down in from San Fran to visit sometime that week. I was wondering if he could do Sunday with us and your dad? If that didn’t interfere with your plans?_

Kurt smiles, and relaxes, as he texts back, _Mutually assured family-meeting destruction. I like it. Just let me know what his itinerary is, I’ll plan the menu accordingly._

_Awesome! And don’t be scared of Cooper, he’ll try to intimidate you but he’s just a big puppy dog._

Kurt types back one-handed as he reaches for the trailer door. _It must run in the family, then ;)_

His phone buzzes again when he sets it down to start taking off his shirt, and then again when Pat approaches him with a bottle of makeup remover and a gleam in her eye. 

_?_

_Brat. :)_

*

The lot had been on the way to whatever meeting Blaine had today, so he’d dropped Kurt off that morning on his way, and now Kurt’s waiting on the trailer steps for him to pick him back up, enjoying the warm spring night and the chance to just sit and be quiet and just be _him_.

It’s hard to sit still and without stimulation for very long, though - if he doesn’t stop this he’s going to be as bad as Blaine someday - so Kurt starts to web surf. He’s already exhausted the first batch of resources Jamie had sent him, and he hasn’t yet gotten around to asking for more, so for now it’s mostly google, which brings him to wikipedia and then some blogs, amateur historian-bloggers who seem to have way too much time on their hands, and then -

_Blaine Anderson, star of the upcoming film Letter to a G.I., a work of historical fiction portraying the relationship between between two soldiers in World War II, seen around L.A. with co-star and possible beau Kurt Hummel..._

It had been weird enough, seeing pictures of Blaine in the paper and magazines before, but this isn’t for any interview, this is just _them_ , last week when they’d had a day off and had spent the afternoon just wandering around town, and, no, Kurt _hadn’t_ been discreet about kissing Blaine on a streetcorner while they’d been waiting for the light to change because this possibility had not occurred to him and now, wow, the internet has pictures of him kissing his boyfriend. Which means that the internet now also has fangirls (Blaine’s loyal following, Kurt thinks, raising a baffled and bemused eyebrow at the comments on some of the photos) trying to deconstruct exactly what is going on.

Kurt’s life is _bizarre_.

Blaine finds him there, still scrolling through the photos (there aren’t really that many, thankfully, though apparently it doesn’t take many to cause an avalanche of speculation on tumblr) and trying to make this all make sense.

“What’s going on?” he asks, when Kurt doesn’t immediately look up. 

“I think we have...shippers,” Kurt says faintly, and passes the phone over. Blaine takes the phone with a questioning look, and then starts flicking through the tabs.

“...huh.”

“Yeah.” Kurt wraps his arms around his knees.

“Are you - I’m sorry, Kurt, I should have warned you, I guess, or asked you if -”

“It’s okay.”

Blaine’s eyebrows go up. “Really? They’re getting pretty - imaginative.” 

“Not as imaginative as _we_ get,” Kurt says, and lifts a coy eyebrow, and Blaine grins ruefully. “I’m almost disappointed they have such little faith.”

“...Really.”

“Really.” Kurt holds out a hand, and Blaine passes him the phone back he closes the tabs and slips it back in his pocket. “I’m not going to pretend it’s not weird and bizarre and kind of invasive, and at some point later I will probably freak out about it, but.” He holds up a hand, and Blaine grabs it to pull him to his feet. “Now I know that that’s out there, and I am never, ever going internet surfing ever again.”

“Ignorance is bliss?” Blaine still looks unconvinced, and at some point they probably really should have a longer conversation about it. But right now Kurt would really rather not think about it at all. 

“ _Definitely_ ” Kurt grins. Blaine laughs, and wraps an arm around his waist as they start for the parking lot. “So. What should we make for dinner?”

*

After a while Kurt forgets the pictures, because it turns out he has much more immediate concerns to worry about.

His dad is coming in on Friday and they’re expecting Cooper sometime Thursday, so Kurt has to clean his entire house. Normally, he likes cleaning; there’s a peaceful zen in repetitive, mindless tasks like washing dishes and folding clothes. It’s a chance to relax and just let his mind wander while he gets his to-do list checked off. 

But tonight, the thought his mind keeps wandering back to is that he is living with his boyfriend, and that his father is coming to stay with him at his house. His house where he is living with his boyfriend. Blaine had offered to stay at his own place while Burt was in town, but Kurt had said no - as much as he doesn’t want to give up three nights with Blaine, it would also feel like a lie. He and Blaine live together, and he is not going to hide that from the most important person in his life. It also means that the most important person in his life is going to know that Kurt lives with his boyfriend, and is going to be staying under the same roof under which Kurt shares his bed with Blaine. This is all way more to deal with than a few random pictures on the internet.

Kurt thinks about it while he scrubs accumulated dirt and mineral stains off of his flowerpots. Kurt doesn’t _do_ things like this, he doesn’t take lovers while he’s on brief trips overseas, he does not live with men he has not dated for years first. His dad had approved of that; Kurt had been proud of that; he had never lost himself in love, had never given up anything he wanted or wanted to be for another person. His dad can say that he’s fine with Kurt dating Blaine; he probably is fine with Kurt dating Blaine, but being fine with it in theory is going to be far, far different than saying goodnight to his son and then watching his son close his bedroom door behind himself and another man. And Kurt is twenty-seven, he is not a _child_ , but every aspect of his life right now is so different from what he’d once imagined it might be, and it might be _better_ but Kurt can’t shake the feeling that it’s also somehow wrong. 

He’s losing control, slipping on the tempting slope of giving in to what he wants instead of what he has carefully planned and plotted and achieved, and nothing about that seems right. Life with Chandler had been like that - meticulously arranged and discussed and compromised and agreed upon. Kurt had never doubted, never felt like he was doing anything but everything he could to be the best he could be. Only Kurt is starting to realize that if he’s honest with himself, as he wrings out the wad of paper towels and picks up a rag to dry the pots out with, there had been less honest compromise than there had been Kurt laying out his goals, and Chandler working with him to make them work. It hadn’t been fair, it hadn’t been equal, and it’s probably why it had ended, Chandler suddenly (probably not so suddenly; had his resentment been building up for years?) deciding he had had enough.

It had still been far less frightening than life with Blaine is.

Distantly, he can hear a key in the lock, and the front door open and close. He turns on the water again and rinses out the little watering can until he feels warm arms slip around his waist, and a chin nestle comfortably on his shoulder.

“Mmm, you feel good.”

Kurt wipes off his hands on a towel and reaches back to stroke through Blaine’s hair. “Hey, sweetheart. Long day?”

“You have no idea, rehearsal with Marley ran late and then I got stuck on Skype with David, he’s freaking out about the launch date again which means a rewrite is in my very near future.” Blaine burrows his face into the back of Kurt’s neck. “Can I just sleep here?”

“Mm. If you can walk in your sleep.” Kurt illustrates his point by stepping out of Blaine’s arms to start unloading the dishwasher. 

Blaine shuffles over to follow him, and wraps him up again. “I’ll do my best.” His hands stroke over Kurt’s side, and then starts kneading into his back. “Hey, you’re all tense, what’s wrong?”

Kurt shrugs and unloads some more glasses. “It’s nothing.”

Blaine catches his hands, and turns him back around to face him while Kurt ducks his head and tries not to meet his eyes. “Hey. Kurt. Talk to me.” 

“It’s really nothing.” Kurt tries to pull away - he has dishes to put away - but Blaine just holds on tighter. 

“Kurt.” Blaine’s hands are warm, and he’s close enough for Kurt to smell, coffee and citrus that’s come to mean _home_ to Kurt, in such a short time. 

Kurt sighs. “I’m just freaking out.”

“What about?”

“Just - my dad, and Easter, and _you_ , and everything...”

“Me? Kurt, if you’re worried about your dad, I really don’t have to stay here.”

“No. No.” Kurt holds Blaine’s hands tighter. “No, I want you here. It’s just - really weird, for me. I don’t do things like this.”

“Like what?” Blaine’s frown is confused, and still a little worried.

“Like - just. Being with you. Without worrying about the consequences.”

Blaine gives a sad little smile, and lets go of his hands. “You worry too much.”

Kurt lifts a self-deprecating shrug. “It’s gotten me some good places. It’s gotten me here.”

“Yeah.” Blaine says, and turns away to grab a dishtowel to help. Kurt can see the line of tension in his shoulders, too, and doesn’t remotely know how to make it go away. “It’s gotten you here.”

*

Cooper gets into town Thursday afternoon, and Kurt’s alone in the house when he comes by that evening. It’s weird, welcoming Blaine’s brother into Blaine’s home without Blaine himself actually being there, but Cooper seems to take it all in stride and doesn’t comment on the easy way Kurt knows his way around Blaine’s kitchen. 

Blaine finds them there when he finally comes in, sitting across from each other at the island, Cooper lounging on a bar stool (Kurt hadn’t known it was possible to lounge on a bar stool), Kurt sitting cross-kneed, both nursing cups of coffee going lukewarm.

“Cooper!” Blaine exclaims, setting his bag down by the kitchen door and coming to stand beside Kurt. “I’m glad you made it in okay, how are you doing?” 

“Great!” Cooper stands up to hug Blaine, who pulls back only a beat too soon. 

“Good, I’m - good.”

“And the movie? Breaking all the hearts yet?”

“The movie’s good.” Blaine slides onto the stool next to Kurt, on the other side of the island from Cooper. “How are things with you?”

“Oh, same old, same old.” Cooper waves a casual hand. “But I didn’t come all the way here to talk about me.” He leans forward, and props his chin on his hands. “Tell me all what’s up with you, squirt.”

What follows is one of the stranger half-hours of Kurt’s life. There is nothing openly hostile between the brothers; Blaine is, well, Blaine, energy and poise, and Cooper is over-the-top in his charm and energy but there’s something sweetly appealing about it anyway. They’re not talking about anything that’s not easy and polite, but still there’s an undercurrent, some history Kurt can only catch hints of, like the echo of an echo. It’s there when Cooper talks about his wife’s next project, there when Blaine rattles off his impressive (and insane) schedule for the next week, complete with meetings with producers and recording sessions and time with editors.

“...and we wrap up filming in a few weeks, so I’ve already got things lined up for when that’s done. The album will still take a while to finish but my agent has a lead for a new show that’s starting up that she thinks might be good, and...”

It’s by chance that Kurt is watching Cooper, not Blaine, when Blaine starts talking about future plans that Kurt’s had no idea about. It’s not a surprise that Blaine is planning on staying busy, but it is disappointing; he’s stretched so thin as it is, and Kurt had hoped for at least some sort of break before the next wave of madness started. Cooper, in the middle of stirring creamer into his fresh cup of coffee, gives Blaine a sharp and not at all over-the-top look that Blaine, engrossed in shredding an empty sugar packet, doesn’t see. 

“I thought you were going to take a break after G.I. wrapped, Squirt.” The nickname sounds much more affectionate this time, and he glances at Kurt before he goes on. “You know they’re going to want you on the press junket, and you should be available for that. You’ve got enough on your schedule to deal with already.”

Blaine shrugs. “I like to stay busy.”

“So do I. I also like to sleep. And have a life. Look, Blaine.” There’s nothing ridiculous at all about Cooper now as he reaches out and plucks the poor abused sugar packet out of Blaine’s fingers. “You’ve got to take a break, you’re going to kill yourself working if you don’t.” Cooper’s eyes dart to Kurt again, and Kurt suddenly realizes that he has an ally. 

Blaine shrugs again, that one-shouldered-lift, and Kurt suddenly realizes a whole lot more.

“Blaine -”

“Did you just come here to lecture me, Coop?” Blaine lets the shreds of paper fall from his fingers and sits up straighter. “Because I seriously have better things to do with my time.” He says it lightly, tries to make a joke out of it, but it’s not really working.

“No. I just love you and kind of want you to not die of a heart attack at thirty.”

“I work out,” Blaine grins wryly.

“I’m sure you do. Which is just putting more strain on that pretty little heart of yours, and I’m quite certain Kurt there doesn’t want to give up that part of you yet. Among others.” He _winks_ , and Kurt on top of everything else tries not to spontaneously combust from embarrassment on the spot. Maybe he can do without the ally, after all.

Cooper folds his hand, looking incongruously like a businessman at a board meeting, and goes on. “I just mean that, at some point you’re going to have to stop thinking about everything you’re going to do, and start thinking about the things you _have_ done. 

“But if I stop looking forward -”

“Oh, god, you sound like Dad.” Cooper rolls his eyes. “Can that crap, Blainey. You’re just going to drive yourself crazy.”

“You say that like he doesn’t already,” Kurt puts in. It’s the most he’s said in twenty minutes, and both brothers turn to look at him, Cooper, looking amused; Blaine, looking confused. 

“Oh, screw you both.” Blaine rolls his eyes and pushes back from the counter. “Coop, we’ve got an early call tomorrow, we’re gonna go crash, do you want to stay here tonight?”

Cooper shakes his head. “No,work was kind enough to pay for a hotel room, I might as well use it. I’ll see you guys for dinner tomorrow night, though?”

Blaine glances at Kurt, who nods. “That’d be great. My dad’ll be in town, too, so -”

“The more the merrier! Awesome, hey, it was great meeting you Kurt.”

“You too,” Kurt smiles and starts heading for the stairs, Blaine trailing close behind, but Cooper calls out “Hey, Blaine, just one more thing -”

Blaine waves Kurt on when he raises a questioning eyebrow, so Kurt goes on up, their voices fading away as he goes. He’s shaken; as much as he’s glad to have an ally in the cause of digging Blaine out of his workaholic pit, it’s jarring and a little scary to realize that he might actually _need_ an ally. Whatever it is that makes Blaine this way, that makes him need to constantly prove himself, even to the people closest to him - it’s not going to be fixed in a day or a week, and it’s not going to be fixed by _Kurt_. He can be here, and he can help, and he can offer all the best evidence for why Blaine is talented and amazing and wonderful, with or without his resume, but believing it is something Blaine is going to have to do for himself. It’s one more thing outside of Kurt’s control, and that kind of scares the crap out of him. 

He’s in bed but nothing like asleep, restless while his mind churns, by the time the bedroom door creaks open and Blaine comes in, and quietly clicks on the bedside light to undress. Kurt waits until the light clicks back off and Blaine slides beneath the covers next to him, but still doesn’t ask.

For a long while Blaine’s silent, his breath deep and mostly steady, and eventually Kurt thinks he’s fallen asleep. But then Blaine is rolling closer, pushing the blankets off as the sheets start to warm up - rolling closer, but not touching, and Kurt knows he’s trying to work something out. 

Eventually, he says, and sounds so young in the dark, “I just want to be enough.”

Kurt rolls over and finds Blaine’s eyes in the dark, wide and shining in the light coming in from the streetlamp. “You are enough.”

“But - how do I _know_ -”

He sounds so lost, and so unsure, and it’s all Kurt can do not to wrap him up and hold him and tell him how much he loves him, how much he needs him, how much he _wants_ him. But he’s not sure how much that would get through - Blaine is so used to hearing wonderful things about himself, and somehow manages to disbelieve all of them. Kurt’s going to have to show him instead.

So he rolls over Blaine, covers his body with his and pushes his hands into Blaine’s hair to hold him there. He can make out the fan of Blaine’s eyelashes on his cheeks as he blinks, and leans down to whisper in Blaine’s ear. “Trust me.”

They still don’t do it this way as much, but Blaine lies back and lets Kurt touch him, mouths and hands and encouraging fingers. When Kurt pushes in Blaine’s breath catches on something like a sob, but when Kurt stops, horrified, Blaine lifts his own hips to meet him.

“No, Kurt, it’s not, I’m fine, _please_ , I need -”

So he rocks into him, slow in the quiet empty house, and he wraps his hand around Blaine’s cock and starts to stroke in time with his thrusts.

“I need you,” Blaine pants, breathless and desperate until Kurt leans down and kisses the skin over Blaine’s heart.

“You have me, sweetheart, I _promise_ ” Kurt whispers, and finds Blaine’s hands and holds them tight while he fucks into him. Love makes hopeless knots of the best-laid plans, but Kurt can’t make himself not want to be right here, right now and forever. Blaine whimpers as he comes, and Kurt stretches up to kiss him again while the world goes white.

 

*

Neither of them sleep well that night, and in the morning they wake up with the alarm, groggy-eyed but alert already with anxiety. Blaine tries to calm them both down in the shower, a hand wrapped around them both, soap and slickness and it feels good, it does, but Kurt is too nervy to really relax into it, and the orgasm, when Blaine finally gives his wrist a last twist and pants into Kurt’s neck, is sparky and not entirely satisfying.

At work the morning passes in a blur, and Kurt doesn’t even have a clear idea of what scenes they’ve just shot when he leaves the lot at noon, jogging across the asphalt to his car to go meet his dad at the airport.

His dad looks great - a little older, maybe, like he always does when Kurt sees him again, but great - and wraps him up in a giant bear hug right there by the baggage claim. On the drive back to his house Kurt relaxes into familiar chatter and catch-up, and laughs when his Dad grumbles when Lady Gaga comes up on the radio station. Kurt knows who he is when he’s with his dad; he feels safe and warm and protected and sure of himself and his place in the world - he is Burt Hummel’s son, and his dad is always going to love him and be proud of him. It’s always been a gift, and over the years Kurt has come to learn just how big a gift it is, and he never stops being grateful for it.

L.A. traffic is as awful as it always is, and when Kurt pulls onto his street he can see Blaine’s car already in his driveway. Kurt starts feeling the tension rising again as he parks his car and helps his dad with his suitcase. He’s glad Blaine’s here, but he’d hoped for just a few minutes to get his dad settled in without his boyfriend around, like somehow he can delay this overlapping of his lives.

Blaine meets them at the door with a handshake for Burt (Kurt whacks his dad on the elbow on his way past, because that’s his dad’s intimidating-the-boyfriend handshake, he can just tell) and a kiss for Kurt. There’s the shuffle of getting luggage put away and jackets hung up and then they’re all sitting around the living room with glasses of iced tea.

Kurt is sure that he is the only one this is weird for. His dad takes to Blaine instantly, like Kurt had been sure he would - he doesn’t think Burt Hummel is capable of not adopting any wayward young person who crosses his path, particularly when said young person is conversant in March Madness - but Kurt can’t relax. He’s in a room with his father and his lover, and as much as he needs his dad to approve of Blaine he needs to coexist as himself: as son and lover both. 

It’s _hard._

Blaine must sense that something is off, because he stays closer to Kurt than he might usually throughout the evening, given that they have company. Kurt appreciates it, but in some ways it just makes it worse; Blaine’s easy arm around his shoulders when they sit to watch the game together can’t be soothing when all Kurt can imagine is his dad’s eyes on that arm, and the familiar way Kurt leans into Blaine’s side.

Finally, when the game ends and his dad yawns and then goes to bed - god bless time differences and jetlag - Kurt is left alone in the living room with Blaine, still tight and restless with nerves. 

“We can take care of the dishes in the morning - do you want to go to bed, babe?” Blaine drops his hand to curl around Kurt’s thigh. Kurt can’t imagine going to bed, even just to sleep, with his boyfriend with his father in the house, but what choice does he have? 

Choice - he does have choices. All the choices in the world - and the one he made was Blaine. Maybe, just maybe, he can make this work.

Kurt breathes, heavy in-out of expanding and contracting lungs, and covers Blaine’s hand with his own. “Okay.”

*

Once Kurt’s bedroom door is closed safely behind them, Blaine pushes Kurt up against it and breathes into his neck, pressing kisses into the skin, “What do you want?”

“Just - just you.” He wants Blaine, he wants this part of his life that he has chosen, and that he can choose to make work, if he wants to. 

Blaine nips at the skin over his collarbone, and then presses a kiss to soothe. “How do you want me?”

Sometimes, when they do this, Blaine leads; sometimes, Kurt does; usually, it’s the both of them together, touch and push and stroke as they learn each other, and learn each other better. But Blaine is waiting for something from Kurt, his hips still, and Kurt leans his head back against the wall and tries to push out everything that isn’t Blaine’s warmth pressed against him, his breath in his ear, his hands resting, quiescent, on his hips. It’s easier to give in than he expects, and that in and of itself is scary.

“I want to fuck you.”

“Mm,” Blaine moves, a little, just an aborted roll of his hips before he stops himself. His fingers dig into Kurt’s hips a little harder, though. “Why?”

“Because -” Kurt swallows, and tries to think this through, but it’s hard with Blaine pressed up against him. “Because then I’m in control. I can - decide what to do.”

“Really,” Blaine says, and snakes a hand down between them to palm at Kurt’s erection through his pants. Kurt groans, and his head knocks back against the wall. “If I strip you, and push onto your back on the bed and hold your hands down and ride you, then you’re in control?”

Kurt’s breath hitches at the words Blaine is breathing in his ear, at the images they’re painting in his head. His cock throbs hard in his pants. 

“Y - yes.”

“Why?” Blaine sucks another kiss into his neck, and he’s going to leave a bruise but Kurt doesn’t remotely care right now, he just wants Blaine on him, all over him, skin on skin together. 

“Because.” Kurt’s not thinking this through, doesn’t have enough of his brain left to think through; all that’s left is Blaine’s mouth and hands and body, and what Kurt wants. “Because it’s you. Because I want you. Because I chose you.” He pauses to gasp for breath, and Blaine pulls back to look him in the eye, pupils blown-dark in the low light, an expression Kurt can’t read on his face. “I had a million reasons not to but I did. And now I’m here. And I _want_ you. That’s what I want Blaine. Please.” It’s not something he does, Kurt Hummel does not _beg_ , but the distance between them is suddenly too much and Blaine already has all of him; Kurt is already as vulnerable as he can be. He just needs to prove it to himself. “Hold me down and ride me.”

The look on Blaine’s face is a mess of want and arousal, and his hands pull at Kurt’s hips like he doesn’t know whether to push him back against the wall or pull him towards the bed. So Kurt leans forward and kisses him, hot and needy and all tongue, and whispers against his mouth, “Please.”

Blaine undresses him slowly, gently, unbuttoning Kurt’s shirt and stripping him out of his undershirt and unfastening his pants while Kurt lies back and makes himself lie still, closes his fists in the sheets to keep them from helping to take off his own jeans and letting Blaine strip him. When he’s naked, goosebumped too-pale skin, Blaine tosses his own clothes aside and then climbs over Kurt, stretching out over him and mouthing at his neck while Kurt loosens his death-grip on the sheets and lets himself touch.

Blaine’s skin is silk-slick under his hands, warm and sweat-tacky, and he closes his hands around Blaine’s back instead of in the blankets, and traces over the knobs of Blaine’s spine as Blaine curls his back to kiss Kurt’s neck, his shoulder, his collarbone. 

“Kurt, I just want to take care of you,” Blaine says, hiding the words, almost a plea, in Kurt’s skin, and Kurt feels a wave of guilt through the desperation: guilt for not letting Blaine be enough, for not letting him be all that he is to Kurt, and he is everything. 

“You can, sweetheart, you can, please.” Kurt pushes his fingers into the damp hair at the back of Blaine’s neck and holds him there. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Blaine says, and presses an open-mouthed kiss to Kurt’s chest. And then, more commanding, even if his voice is shaking with it. “Give me your hands.”

It’s hard to give in, as much as he wants it, hard to relax into what Blaine is giving him; control and un-control at once, and finally it’s that knowledge, knowing that Blaine _knows_ him, knows what he needs and wants to give it to him, that makes Kurt comfortable enough to relax. Once he does, once he lets Blaine go to straddle his hips, once he lets Blaine take his hands and guide them above his head and lets the last tension ebb out of his spine suddenly everything is molten, liquid, throbbing through his veins. 

He gasps when Blaine’s fingers curl around his wrists, his lungs shocked with the pleasure of it, and Blaine laughs softly in his ear. “You like that, baby?”

“Please -”

Blaine works himself down slowly onto Kurt, and Kurt whines and works his hips when Blaine sinks down, spine bowing back so beautifully as he starts to ride.

“Oh, god, Blaine -”

“I want this, and you want this, and that is all that matters.” Blaine’s face is tense, his hips moving in time to Kurt’s thrusts, and he lets go of Kurt’s wrists with one hand to brush a strand of Kurt’s hair out of his face. It’s that gentle touch as much as anything that makes Kurt’s eyes close, and he groans.

“I always knew you were a romantic,” he pants, and opens his eyes again at Blaine’s pained chuckle.

“No you didn’t. And no I wasn’t.” Blaine shifts his weight again in a way that makes them both gasp. “I learned that from you.”

“What -? Blaine, don’t stop, there, please -”

“You want things so much.” Blaine’s voice is a strained stutter, his hips moving faster now. “When I thought you might want me you changed everything, Kurt, but I wasn’t sure - I didn’t know -”

“I always want you. Blaine -

“Then have me,” Blaine says, and drops Kurt’s hands to dig his fingers into Kurt’s hair, kissing him hungry and wet and hard while Kurt’s muscles seize up and his hips slam into Blaine, out of control, he needs and he wants and he’s taking, now, and Blaine is right there with him, whimpering into his mouth while Kurt gets a hand between them and strokes his cock and they both come, shaking and panting and clinging while they come down.

Kurt buries his face in Blaine’s shoulder as they tremble through the aftershocks, and when Blaine finally stirs above him, bracing his weight so he’s not crushing Kurt, Kurt brushes curls out of Blaine’s eyes and looks up at him, feeling cracked open with the shock of it, the realness of it. He’s not sure how to put it in words, what Blaine has just given him, but Blaine hums into his mouth when he leans up to kiss him and Kurt thinks he knows, anyway.

They clean up and pull the blanket up to cover the wrecked sheet and then collapse into each other, breath starting to come steady again as they finally settle. Kurt wraps an arm around Blaine’s chest and holds him there, dragging his fingers through the soft scratch of hair. 

“I always, _always_ want you.” he says quietly.

Blaine’s voice is murmured, on the edge of sleep. “You always have me, Kurt.”

*

The next day, it’s easier. They have the day off from shooting so they take Burt around L.A., the two of them, and it’s not something Kurt’s ever done before, just spending the day out with his dad and his significant other. Burt never had much time to come to New York when Kurt was with Chandler, and Chandler had had his own family and plans and never had much time to spend with them when they were back in Ohio for the holidays. And Lawerence - well, that had just been a mess.

Maybe Kurt really can do this - maybe he really can be what he is to each of them, because what he is is _Kurt_ , whether he’s his dad’s Kurt or Blaine’s. And, even more than that - it’s not just that Kurt can be Burt Hummel’s son and Blaine Anderson’s boyfriend. Maybe Blaine can be part of this part of his life, too, can have inside jokes with his dad (Blaine has clearly been holding back on his interest in sports, and that’s going to have to be a longer conversation, because, really, Blaine?) and launch into a tangent on the finer points of that year’s bracket while Kurt rolls his eyes at both of them and goes back to picking out spinach and tomatoes and peppers for salad tonight. 

That night, after Burt masters the grill on Kurt’s back porch that Kurt usually refuses to touch, after Cooper comes over and gets integrated into the group as easily as if Kurt and Burt had always known him, after they’ve cleaned up from dinner and watched the last half of the game and Cooper has left and Burt has gone to bed, early, again, Kurt climbs into bed next to Blaine and hovers over him, looking but not touching, while Blaine blinks up at him at lets him.

“It’s not about compartmentalizing,” he says, touching light fingertips to Blaine’s bare shoulder, tracing the line where the sheet meets his glowing skin. Blaine says nothing, and just nods. “It’s not about - not being me.”

“No?” 

Kurt drags his hand lower, bringing the sheet down with it, exposing more planes of skin under the smooth cotton. It’s cool in the room with the window open, and goosebumps flare across Blaine’s chest. Kurt lowers his head to kiss them away. “No.” He licks at Blaine’s nipple, and smiles when Blaine’s hands tighten in the sheets on either side of him. “It’s about _being_ him, all the way.” He kisses lower, tongue tracing the soft dips and swells of Blaine’s stomach. “It’s about being _me_ , all the way.”

At the waistband of Blaine’s underwear he pauses, and curls his fingers under the elastic. Blaine hooks an arm behind his own head for support and lifts his neck to look down at him. “All the way?” his voice is low, husky the way it is when he gets really turned on, private and just for him.

“All the way,” Kurt confirms, and pulls Blaine’s underwear down and off. Blaine is hard and heavy on his tongue, and this is him, this is them, and how they take care of each other.

*

Monday, Kurt leaves his dad in Blaine’s capable hands for the day and goes back to Dave and Paul and the world of G.I. This time, it’s easy; Blaine is waiting, safe at home, probably revising his score and yelling at the tv with his dad, and in Dave’s shirt and shoes and tags Paul across the room is so appealing. Dave lets himself be appealed to, lets Paul offer him his hand and a drink, laughs when Paul pulls him down on the piano bench next to him and talks him into a ridiculous duet. 

Down, down, all the way into it; Kurt is sinking, further than he ever has before, and down below _Kurt_ disappears, because he has let himself, and all that’s left is Dave and instinct while Dave laughs and flirts and tries a new way of being a little bit in love.

*

They’ve never really been filming in order, not exactly, and Kurt thinks he might get used to the nonlinearity of the storytelling eventually. Sometimes it feels like a powerful statement about - something, the vagaries of time and memory and experience, _something_ ; sometimes it just feels weird. Today is one of the this-is-weird days, coming on the heels of all Kurt’s agonizing over Paul, to walk onto set and into Dave and have everything be good, better than good. 

Someday this will all feel coherent, maybe, all of this out-of-order filming, when production is done and editing is done and they can all sit down and watch the whole film through, but Kurt’s not sure if he wants it too. Right now it feels like they’re floating, flying, and he wants this day to last forever, the day he ran through the camp and burst through Brian’s door.

Brian laughs at him when Dave pulls him out of his chair into a dance, his face so sweetly confused, and Dave has never been so happy as he is now, to be able to give him this. 

“We’re going home!”

*

_Sixth and final part posting Saturday, March 2_


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is the sixth and final part of G.I. This story has been an incredible experience, to write and to share, and I’m going to miss it terribly. Thank you so much to all of you who have read along, and thank you to all of you who have left such lovely feedback. It’s been a wonderful ride.
> 
> And though this is the last part of the story, G.I. is not entirely over! The lovely and amazing Wordplay is writing an epilogue, which will be going up sometime this week, so stay tuned for that! I cannot express how insanely thrilled and excited I am for that, and you all should be too :D

So, this is the sixth and final part of G.I. This story has been an incredible experience, to write and to share, and I’m going to miss it terribly. Thank you _so much_ to all of you who have read along, and thank you to all of you who have left such lovely feedback. It’s been a wonderful ride.

A masterpost and a post-mortem may go up sometime tomorrow. And now, the end: 

*

The backstage set is cramped and cluttered and uncomfortable - like a real backstage would be, actually. It’s not a real theatre, just a big tent with some lights rigged up and a lot of scrounged up seating but they’d have made it work, the G.I.s, anything to escape for a while from the uncomfortable realities of life and war. 

It’s hard to find time together, hard to find a place to be together, but after the “misunderstanding” about Paul (Brian is kind enough, and maybe lonely enough, to let Dave wave it off as a misunderstanding; Dave is too relieved to be able to feel too guilty about that) they desperately need it. 

“Godammit!” 

“Cut!”

Kurt shouldn’t, he really shouldn’t, but Blaine’s managed to get himself snagged on the windowframe for the third time - Anita is ready to have conniptions, his jacket comes closer to tearing every time - but the look on Blaine’s face is so indignant and he just looks ridiculous, teetering up there on the windowsill and clinging to a beam, white-knuckled, for support, and Kurt can’t help laughing. Blaine gives him a sulky glare while Julianne moves the stepladder back for him to scramble down on, and Kurt just sticks his tongue out at him. 

“Yeah, yeah, let’s see _you_ try to do that gracefully,” Blaine pouts, while Kurt rubs his back encouragingly once he’s back safely on the ground. 

“I would, but I’d hate to bruise your ego like that - or my shins.” Kurt smirks, and Blaine rolls his eyes and snaps Kurt’s belt against his hip. 

“Alright, again -” Johnny’s voice comes from behind the camera, and Blaine sighs heavily. 

“Mourn for me when I fall and break my neck?”

Kurt just laughs again and kisses Blaine’s cheek before taking up his own position under the window.

*

The G.I. theatre isn’t the best place for this, but it’s one of the only places, outside of their own tents, and neither of those are empty tonight. So they find boxes to pile together and help each other through the window, careful but probably nothing like quiet enough, not for this risk, but neither of them have it in them to care.

It’s their lucky night, apparently, in more ways than one, because there’s a cot back here - some performer or technician’s, maybe, to catch a nap between acts or who, like they do, sometimes needs a quiet place out of the public view. The irony that they’re feet from the stage is not lost on Dave.

It’s too cold to do much but they don’t need to do much, happy and eager just to pull the blankets up around themselves and slip together, skin on skin until the cold and the stage and the whole world slip away, and it’s just them, and they slide in each other’s arms and then slip into sleep.

* 

Awakening is cold, and bright, and sudden, and it’s with an awful sinking sensation that Dave realizes that they are still here, in a place that is not private, and very, very exposed.

“Brian - Brian!” he hisses, and gropes in the blankets for his shirt, because if someone comes in now there’s no way to explain this away, two guys falling asleep together is one thing, the two of them falling asleep together with their clothes scattered around the way they are is another entirely. 

“What?” Brian lifts his head from the pillow, and he’s so beautiful in the early morning light, dark lashes and sleep-mussed hair. It’s dangerous, now, but Dave can’t help taking a moment, just to look. He wishes they could always wake up together, like this, that he could always watch Brian’s eyes blink awake, soft and dark from sleep.

“We fell asleep - we’ve got to get out of here -”

“Oh no -”

The soft sleepiness is gone in an instant, replaced with the worry Dave feels, too, the danger of being caught. But - they haven’t been discovered so far, and once their clothing is put to rights (they might be wearing the wrong shirts, Dave isn’t sure; he hopes they are) the immediate danger is gone and they just sit there, one on each side of the cot, catching their breaths and calming their panicked urgency. Little by little they lean into each other, until their backs are pressed together and they’re all but holding each other up.

“Somebody must be looking out for us,” Brian says, scrubbing a hand through his hair. Bless his reputation as a lightweight - no one will question his late arrival back to his tent. 

“Yeah,” Dave says, and leans more heavily back into the warm support of Brian’s broad back. “Let’s hope they don’t ever stop.”

*

Stretched out over Blaine, Kurt presses an ear to his chest and listens to the comforting _thump-thump, thump-thump_ of his heart. Blaine has a hand in his hair and one behind his own head, and it’s so comforting and relaxing that Kurt could stay here all night, never mind that it’s still light out and they have places to be tonight. When they’d gotten home from the set they hadn’t been able to resist, not after a day close together and talking about it, even if it was in little touches and nudges throughout the day; Kurt’s hand on Blaine’s back in between takes, Blaine’s ankle between his at lunch. Dave and Brian can’t be together like this, but they can, and the knowledge of that makes it hard not to take advantage of the opportunities that they have - not that they really need the excuse, anyway.

Kurt snakes a hand down the bed and presses a hand next to where Blaine’s cock is getting interested again. “Are you sure?”

Blaine groans and pushes at him until Kurt, laughing, rolls away. “ _Yes._ You’re not going to want to dance with me if I don’t give you something to look forward to.”

“Oh?” Kurt says, with a quirked eyebrow. He reaches over to pinch Blaine’s hip. “How do you know I won’t leave you on the dancefloor for some more _willing_ participant?”

“Because,” Blaine rolls over onto his stomach and gives Kurt the most pathetic look. “I’ll give you the puppy eyes, and you won’t be able to resist.”

Kurt smiles helplessly. “You rely far too much on the power of your eyes.”

“Worked on you,” Blaine smirks, and climbs to his knees to lean over Kurt and whisper hot into his ear. “That, or I’ll just grab you back and push you up against a wall and grind against you ‘til you forget anyone else exists.”

“Oh,” Kurt says, and damn, because Blaine isn’t the only one now who’s _interested._ “Okay, then.”

Blaine gives him a last smouldering look and then tosses back the covers and heads for the dresser, and Kurt watches his bare ass while he digs through a drawer for a fresh shirt. How Blaine can go from puppyish and teasing to - well, incredibly hot - in an instant is something he’ll never figure out. 

On his way to the bathroom Kurt smacks Blaine on the ass, and Blaine gives him the brightest smile over his shoulder. Kurt’s pretty sure he’ll never get tired of trying, though.

*

The mood in the club is light and happy - the shoot is starting to wind down; the days are still long but there’s light at the end of the tunnel, now, and that, combined with the warm spring air carrying its freshness even into the hot, noisy interior of the club just serves to make everyone bright and happy.

Blaine makes good on his promise, pulling Kurt into a dark corner and pressing against him and whispering into his ear everything he wants to do to him; everything he’s thinking about doing to him. Kurt closes his eyes and lets himself soak it in, all of it, the sweet air and the smell of sweat and alcohol and the buzz of energy, the heat and unhurried urgency of Blaine’s voice in his ear. Kurt wants it, what he’s saying, but not here, surrounded by so many people who know them, so he presses a kiss to Blaine’s throat and then lets Blaine kiss him, teeth and tongue and pressing hands, before he pulls him back out to the dance floor. 

As the evening goes on, though, the energy in the room starts to shift. Kurt’s not sure where the change comes from, but there is a change in the way their people are moving on the floor, a difference to the way Blaine’s hands are holding his hips, and he knows. 

“It’s coming, isn’t it.”

It’s almost too loud for Blaine to hear him, but he slides a hand around his back, splaying his fingers wide at Kurt’s waist and pulling him closer. Under the rumble of the bass and the pound of the music, Kurt feels more than hears his response.

“Yes.”

“When?”

“I don’t know exactly.” Kurt has to lean forward to hear him, and Blaine’s breath is warm against his ear. “But soon.”

“Oh.” It’s been coming, he’s known that since the beginning, but now it’s coming _soon_ , and that makes all the difference. “Okay.”

“Are you okay?” Blaine asks, pressing closer to Kurt, and if Kurt closes his eyes all he can feel is the music and Blaine’s body, hot and sweat-damp under his hands. 

Blaine’s eyelids flutter, but he presses back, 

“Yeah. Just. Dance with me?” Kurt opens his eyes and grinds his hips into Blaine’s. 

Blaine nods, and slots his leg between Kurt’s. It’s dirtier than Kurt usually lets them get in public but tonight he doesn’t care, he is _Kurt_ and he is alive and Blaine never, ever lets him forget that.

*

Kurt sits in his makeup chair, flipping through tomorrow’s script and letting his feet kick against the leg of the chair. Blaine, hunched over his laptop on the couch, looks up and watches him for a few moments. Finally he asks, “Penny for your thoughts?” and stops typing when Kurt swivels around to face him.

“I’m just wondering what comes next.”

“Next for - what?” Blaine lifts a hand to close his computer, but his hand hovers at the top of the screen and doesn’t actually get any farther.

“For me. Job wise.” Kurt closes his script and tosses it onto the table with a sigh. “I just don’t know what happens now.”

“What happens now is that you reap the rewards of being in a highly successful movie with your dashing and very handsome boyfriend,” Blaine says with a smirk, finally closing his laptop, but the smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Yes _but,_ ” Kurt waves a hand like that all is self-evident - which, well, he thinks it is. But _after_ that.”

“Why?” Blaine sets the computer aside and hooks his feet up on his backpack, on the floor in front of him. “I mean, of course you are. But why now?” There’s something uneasy in his eyes, and he’s picking at the electrical tape wrapped around his frayed power cord instead of at Kurt.

Kurt bites his lip and considers his answer; as open as he and Blaine are with each other, he knows there are things they haven’t told each other, and the emails flagged in Kurt’s inbox are one of those things.

“People are getting word of the movie, Johnny’s been talking around, and there’s been some interest. I mean, just a little, it’s still really early. But one of the things they’re interested in, apparently, is - me.”

“Really. What - kind of interest?”

Kurt shrugs, like this is something easy, something he could get used to talking about. He’s not sure if he ever will be - it’s too good, almost, to be true. “Music things mostly - so, thank you, for that.” Blaine gives a half-smile; he had been the one to persuade Jaya to put recordings of Kurt on the soundtrack preview. “Nothing solid or definitive, but - it’s going to be out there.”

“Well, it should be,” and this time Blaine’s smile is wider, real. “You deserve it, Kurt. I mean it.”

“Thanks.” Kurt bites his lip and looks down at his laugh and pretends he’s not blushing; months together and it _still_ feels good to hear Blaine say that. “But before I decided on anything, or even really thought about it, I wanted to - talk to you. See what you were doing next.”

Whatever turn Blaine had been expecting the conversation to take, it hadn’t been that. “Oh.” Then. “Really?”

“Of course.” Kurt shifts in his seat and wishes he hadn’t tossed the script away; he wants something to fidget with. He’d been counting on at least being able to have a conversation with Blaine about where they were each (hopefully _both_ going next, but maybe even that had been too presumptuous, maybe Blaine had been counting on this ending after all, or hadn’t been ready to take any of Kurt’s plans into account...)

Before he can spiral into his tangent of depression any further, though, Blaine shifts on the couch and gives him a wider smile, this one almost shy. “Oh - I wasn’t sure. I mean. Good. Um.” He picks at the hem of his shorts. “I’m - not really sure what I’m doing next. I have some options lined up, but I’m not sure what I actually want to do.”

“Really? I thought you told Cooper -”

Blaine shrugs. “I’ve been thinking since then. And some new stuff’s come up since then, so - I’m just not sure.” He peels his fingers away from his shorts and looks up at Kurt. “What if - I think you should show me what you’re looking at, and I can show you what I’ve got, and we can - talk? From there?”

And that’s it, that’s what Kurt wants, even without the nervous and sweetly-shy look Blaine is giving him, that’s all Kurt needed. “I’d love that.”

*

A week later, Dave and Brian learn they’re not going home together. It takes a while to sink in. But once it does, and they start to realize exactly how much they had counted on going home together, on _being_ home together...

“It’s not the end of the world,” Dave tells Brian. Sitting outside, watching someone else perform onstage, he can’t reach out and take Brian’s hand the way he wants to, but he does nudge his foot under the bench. “We’ll still both be back stateside, and it can’t be for more than a couple of weeks.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Brian sighs unhappily. As much as Dave wishes they could go together,there’s the smallest bit of satisfaction that Brian is taking this as hard as he is, that this means as much to him as it does to Dave. “And it’ll be better at home than it is here, right?” He’s very obviously trying to cheer himself up, so Dave nods. “Of course!”

*

Blaine wanders into the living room from his workshop, and Kurt looks up at him from the couch and marks his place in his book with his thumb. “Hey, you. What’s up? You’ve been busy all day.” He tucks his legs up so Blaine can sit down on the couch next to him.

Blaine pulls Kurt’s legs back down over his lap. “I just got off the phone with the studio. They offered me the contract, but - I’m not going to take it.”

Kurt lets his book fall onto his chest. “...really.”

Blaine smiles. “Really. And I’m going to put everything else on hiatus until everything’s done with G.I. - except the album, I really want to finish that up with David.”

“Really?”

“Really really.” Blaine squeezes his ankle and smiles at him.

Kurt raises an eyebrow. “And how do you feel about that?”

Blaine’s smile fades, and he toys with the hem of Kurt’s pants thoughtfully. “I feel good. I feel like - G.I. is _good_ , and it deserves a little more time and attention. And I have some new ideas for the album that I want to try - I don’t know how crazy the guys are going to be about them, and I want some more time to play with them, but I think it’ll be good. I think it’s worth giving a shot.”

Kurt smiles, and sets the book on the coffee table. “Good. I think it is too.”

“Plus,” Blaine smiles. “it means I’ll have more time to work with you on that stuff _you’re_ writing. Not that I think you need help,” he hastens to add, when Kurt raises a wry eyebrow. “But what you’ve got is awesome, and I - I want to be a part of it.”

“That’s perfect, actually,” Kurt says, and grins at the way Blaine’s face lights up. “I was going to ask you, anyway, but I wanted to wait til you had decided what to do.” He’d actually refrained from dropping hints about how much he wanted to work with Blaine - this thing, this what-to-do-next, was always something Blaine was going to have to decide for himself. They’d talked about it, about what it was realistic for each of them to do, but in the end it is still Blaine’s career, and Blaine’s decision. 

“Well,” Blaine says. He looks bashful and eager and excited, and Kurt’s heart aches for how much he loves him. “I decided.”

Kurt smiles and reaches across their legs for his hand, and Blaine takes it.

*

The morning they’re doing _The Scene_ \- that’s how Kurt thinks about it, it’s taken on such looming significance in his mind; sometimes he feels ridiculous for it, but mostly he doesn’t - Blaine kisses him awake before the alarm goes off and then coaxes him out of bed and into sweatpants and his car with the lure of coffee and the quietly whispered “there’s something I want to show you.”

There’s a fog rolling in, steady and cold. By the time they gets to the beach the world is pale and white and dim, the sound of the waves distant and yet omnipresent, as the fog shifts sound and surrounds them with the echo of - it seems - eternity.

There is fog dewing on Kurt’s arms; the sand is damp under his bare feet; he is surrounded by the roar of the waves and the scent of seaweed, the salt-tang of the sea mist is heavy on his tongue. Dave’s life ended when his ship went down, and Kurt is surrounded by water, submerged by it, every sense saturated with it except - except for the points of light and warmth that are Blaine’s eyes, pulling him through the fog.

Kurt feels like he might drift away by the time they reach the edge of the water, feels like the tide might catch and pull him under if he loses his footing. But Blaine is there, steady Blaine, warm Blaine, and he holds out a hand and takes Kurt’s cold fingers in his, and pulls him down beside him.

Sex like salvation on the sand, kisses like resuscitation and warm hands pressing life back into cold bodies. Kurt clings to Blaine and doesn’t drown, rolls their bodies together and _breathes_ until his body feels alive again, chilled and yes kind of gritty now from the sand but warm, blood-warm, life-warm running under his skin.

Blaine presses a hand over Kurt’s heart, and Kurt can feel the beat echo in his palm.

*

Johnny had told him he didn’t have to come to set today, but Kurt’s been there every day since the beginning and he can’t stop now, even with how strange it is to walk right on set without stopping at the trailer first for his costume and makeup, because Dave is not going to be here today. Kurt threads his way through sets and walks through a universe in which Dave simply does not exist anymore. Strange doesn’t even begin to describe the feeling of it.

Dave still exists in his mind; the instincts will always be there, and this was always going to be his fate. But he’s muted, now, fading, and Kurt can’t quite keep a hold on him, no matter how he grabs after him, no don’t leave me please no - 

The set is a familiar one; Brian’s tent, and Kurt adjusts his bag and sits on an empty table, back out of the way of things where he can see without being seen. Everything is so familiar, and memories are mixing together, confusing in their clarity: the picture frame he, as Dave, had given Blaine, as Brian, the fading portrait tucked safely behind a postcard of Paris (Blaine had laughed at him, the day they’d taken those portraits, and made him laugh; Blaine has the outtakes pinned above his desk at home); the lantern that had blown out the day they’d laughed together on Brian’s cot, the first time Kurt had been so close to Blaine; the cot Brian had first laid down Dave on; the extra pair of boots by the door that Dave had unlaced, and then tied back up, the last night he and Brian had had together. 

Kurt hears muffled voices coming on to the set, and it’s oddly instinctive, knowing that something is coming that Dave can’t see, to turn his head away, and try not to listen, because Dave shouldn’t know.

But Dave won’t know anyway, because Dave can’t know, because Dave is - 

So Kurt lets himself look, only that becomes, strangely, _making_ himself look, because Blaine is stepping into the lights now, Johnny and Julianne at his side. It’s one thing for Dave to be gone, and it’s another for Brian to be left behind.

*

It’s Marley, sweet Helen, who has to tell him. Kurt sees her, at the edge of the lights, half-hidden by camera equipment, and feels his heart slip. She has a telegram in her hand, her hair is coming undone from its bun, and her eyes are already wet. Helen, Brian’s best friend, Dave’s confidante, the only one who really knows what this means.

“Brian?” She puts on a smile - it looks more like a grimace, and Kurt’s heart aches, with that look in her eyes Brian is going to know as soon as he looks at her - and knocks on the open door.

“Come in.” Blaine, Brian, looks up from his desk, eyes startled and then, as he takes in Helen’s face, her hair, the folded slip of yellow paper in her hands, worried. “What is it?”

Marley ducks her head under the low doorframe and steps inside, perching at the edge of the cot, folding and re-folding that piece of yellow paper.

They’re shooting this one in long takes, turning on the cameras and giving the word and just letting it roll. It feels more like theatre than anything Kurt’s ever done for this movie before, and the part of him that’s left to worry about those sorts of things feels a little jealous that he never got to try it. The rest of him, though - he can see Blaine sink into it, deeper every time, and it’s strange from this vantage point, to watch that transformation without being a part of it himself. There is nothing about this day that is not strange, and wrong-feeling.

It also means that there’s no relief of broken momentum, no pauses to catch their breath and pretend that what’s happening right now isn’t really happening, just one long slog after another into the dark.

“Brian.” Helen puts a hand out - the tent is so small she can reach his knee from her seat on the cot. “It’s Dave.”

Blaine’s knuckles go white, he’s gripping the arm of his chair so hard. His eyes flash, and Kurt can see it in the way the bones of his wrist are flexing - he already knows. His voice is barely a whisper, and not even a question.

“What happened.”

“It’s - he.” Marley pauses to swallow, her voice going. “His ship went down.” The paper crumples in her hand as Brian’s face goes white, and Helen’s voice cracks. “There were no survivors.”

Kurt remembers the farewells on the beach in Algeria; he can also remember the car ride back to the hotel and the way Blaine had touched him in the safety of his own room. Brian has the memory of their last night together and their last kiss on the sand; Kurt also knows he’s going to take Blaine home tonight. Brian doesn’t.

It’s his dad, not himself, he thinks of, when Brian slumps forward, blank-eyed with disbelief and the first dulling edges of grief. Helen goes to her knees to catch him and hold him while his shoulders start to shudder, and then shake. His dad, those first few awful weeks, when the world as they’d known it had ended. Kurt can’t imagine it, doesn’t want to even start to try, but he knows - the scene ends, Johnny calls cut, Blaine sits up wiping his eyes and trying to put on a smile while he helps dust off Marley’s skirt - Blaine’s not imagining it, he’s living it, as much as he can without it actually being real.

Only it must feel so very real, and Kurt’s heart aches for him as they play through take after take after take. Somewhere through the fourth one Kurt realizes he’s crying, too, and he wipes the tears off with the back of his hand until they don’t really stop coming, and then he just sits with his arms wrapped around his knees and his cheek tucked into his arm while he watches Blaine fall apart.

*

When they finally call cut on the last take, Kurt unfolds himself from his seat on the table. He’s lost track of how much time he’s spent here watching, and he’s far from the only one there with wet eyes. He picks up his bag but isn’t sure how to step onto the set, how to cross that line from this world into one where he and Blaine can both exist again.

Blaine is standing alone, pushing his hair back out of his face while he stares out somewhere into the middle distance, and finally Kurt can’t stand it any more. He steps around the edge of the set, and he can tell the exact moment that Blaine sees him because Blaine goes white, again, and his hand falls limply from his hair to his side, his mouth a tight line of something that goes beyond relief. He crosses the set in two quick strides and then he’s in Kurt’s arms, Kurt holding him tight around the waist while Blaine wraps his arms around his neck and buries his face in his shoulder and clings.

“Kurt - oh god Kurt - I thought, god, I thought -”

Kurt’s eyes are damp again, and he holds Blaine tighter and strokes a hand down Blaine’s back, long touches that try to soothe while he whispers back. “It’s okay, Blaine, baby, I’ve got you, I love you.”

“I love you too, I had no idea, I _love_ you, _Kurt_.

“I’m right here, sweetheart.” Kurt kisses the side of his head gently. “I’ll always be here.”

Blaine’s whole body shudders, and the whisper is more like a sob. “I can’t lose you.”

Kurt’s body gives a shake, like Blaine’s tears have jarred something loose in him, too, and he clings back while Blaine cries in earnest now. “You won’t. Blaine. I promise. You won’t.”

*

The night before their last day of principal photography, Kurt and Blaine move quietly around each other in the kitchen at Blaine’s house, making dinner mostly in silence. Normally there’s music and at least talking and usually laughing, but Kurt they’re both distracted with thoughts of tomorrow, and the end of it all.

It’s not an ending, Kurt tries to reassure himself, as Blaine catches his eye across the table and then looks away. It’s just one more step, and then they’ll take the next one together, and life will go on as it did before - busy days and coffee in the mornings and nights with Blaine. No matter what happens with each of them individually, they can make it work together. He hopes.

Blaine is quiet as they clean up the kitchen, and when everything is put away he doesn’t disappear into his workshop like he usually does. Instead, he leans back against the counter, and watches Kurt where he’s pulling tomorrow’s script out of his bag for the last time.

“Kurt?” he asks quietly, and Kurt turns around to look at him, pages in hand. Blaine’s eyes are determined and a little sad. 

Kurt can’t interpret that look, and it scares him a little to try, so he just says “Yeah?”

Blaine curls his hands around the edge of the counter. “Do you want to go for a drive?”

“Right now?”

“Yeah.”

Kurt looks at Blaine, at his uneasy posture, his strangely serious eyes, and braces himself. “Okay.”

*

Blaine doesn’t tell him where they’re going, and Kurt, wanting just to hold onto everything he has right now, doesn’t ask. There’s something familiar about the route they’re taking, though he can’t place it for sure, and it’s not until they take the exit off the highway that he realizes where they’re going.

“We’re going to the beach?” he asks, and feels a little less uneasy - Blaine wouldn’t take him all the way out here just to break up with him, would he?

Blaine nods, a smile quirking the corners of his mouth, though his eyes are still uncertain. “Yep.”

“But - why?”

“Old time’s sake,” Blaine says, and smiles for real that time, pulling into a parking spot and turning the car off. “Come walk with me?”

Kurt offers Blaine a hand to help him down off the dune, and when they get to the bottom Blaine doesn’t let go, just laces their fingers together tighter. At this time of night the beach isn’t entirely deserted - it’s almost completely dark, but it’s not nearly late enough for the rangers to start worrying the family around the campfire or the group of teenagers tossing around a light-up frisbee. Blaine seems to have a particular destination in mind, so Kurt lets him lead them out past the last group of (apparently) engineering students putting the final details on a massive sandcastle to a quiet stretch of beach between the dunes and the water.

The sun’s been down for hours, but there’s still a faint band of light on the western horizon, and it’s enough for Kurt to be able to make out the expression on Blaine’s face when he finally stops walking. He doesn’t look sad anymore, just thoughtful and, as Kurt turns to face him curiously, even a little eager.

“Sit with me?” he asks, tugging on Kurt’s hand, so Kurt sits down on the sand with Blaine between his legs, wrapping his arms around Blaine’s chest while Blaine leans back against him. 

For a long while they’re both quiet, watching the waves roll in and the last of the gold at the horizon fade to blue and then disappear into the profound black of the ocean night. It should feel like the night on the beach in Oran, or the foggy morning weeks ago, but it doesn’t, and Kurt is glad for that. Tomorrow the story is over, and though Kurt will always carry a part of Dave with him, he also wants to start moving on. 

Blaine shifts a little, and pulls something out of his jacket pocket. Kurt loosens his arms to give him more room to move, and then, when Blaine settles again, pulls him in closer. Blaine finds Kurt’s hand, and then presses something cool and smooth into it.

“Don’t drop it.”

“Why, what is it?” Kurt opens his hand carefully and hooks his chin over Blaine’s shoulder to look. “Oh my god, Blaine, you stole Dave’s ring?”

“ _Brian’s_ ring, technically.” Kurt can feel his grin against his cheek. “But. No.”

Kurt looks down at the ring in his hand, while Blaine turns around and sits on his knees in front of him in the sand. Now that he looks it’s not Brian’s ring, no, though it’s similar, and Kurt’s breath catches in his throat. 

“Oh my god, Blaine -”

“Kurt,” Blaine says, his voice a little raspy now, and he reaches out and covers Kurt’s hands with his, lacing their fingers together and pressing the ring between their palms. “Kurt will you marry me?”

“Oh my god.” Blaine’s eyes are wide and bright and hopeful, in a way they’ve never been, and Kurt nearly does drop the ring in the sand when he wraps his arms around Blaine’s neck and buries his head in his shoulder, shaking a little, overwhelmed with the look in Blaine’s eyes and the way his whole body feels light, bubbling with happiness, he feels dizzy with it. “Oh my god, Blaine, yes, yes, _yes_.

Blaine holds him so tight his fingers dig into Kurt’s ribs but Kurt doesn’t care, just holds him. All he can feel is Blaine, and his ears are full of the rustle of the waves and the beat of his heart.

When they can finally peel their arms away from each other, Kurt cups Blaine’s jaw in his hand and kisses him, soft and sweet and just a little hungry, but it’s a hunger they have time for, because this is it - they are moving forward together, and have all the time in the world. 

“I love you,” he says, while Blaine finds his fingers and slips the ring out of his palm and onto Kurt’s right hand.

“Kurt,” Blaine says. He looks so _happy,_ disbelieving and relieved. “I love you too.”

*

“Blaine I am _not_ having sex on the beach again. There is still sand in the washing machine.” 

“But home is so _far,_ ” Blaine pouts, and squeezes Kurt’s hand tighter. Kurt can’t deny that he wants it, wants to touch Blaine and be with him, not to prove anything but just to _be_ , them, together, in all the ways they know how. 

“What about the car?” Kurt asks, teasingly, playing with the cuff of Blaine’s sleeve while Blaine’s eyes go wide and dark.

“Oh you are a genius, I love you,” he says, and grabs Kurt by the back of his neck to pull him in for the kiss. “Now, come on,” he says, and takes Kurt’s hand and starts down the beach. “I need to fuck my fiance.”

Kurt’s heart thumps, almost painful with too much happiness, as he skips to keep up with Blaine, and their laughter follows them down the beach.

*

There’s not an overabundance of room in the backseat, but given the proper motivation, they can make anything work. They lose themselves to kissing for long frantic moments until Kurt’s hips roll, hard and eager, and then there’s fumbling at clothing and for lube and a condom and Blaine’s breaths coming faster and shorter while Kurt works into him, slowly and carefully until they’re there, Kurt deep inside, skin to skin and flesh to flesh. There’s just enough light to be able to see Blaine’s eyes, glittering too-bright with feeling in the dark; the rest of their bodies are left to shadow and touch, Kurt’s hands around Blaine’s ass pulling him closer, Blaine’s fingers scratching and then clutching at Kurt’s chest. The mood shifts and breaks and reforms again and again; gasping to giggling to low, long, deep breaths into each other’s skin, and Kurt closes his eyes and lets himself sink, into the night, into Blaine, his body and his hands. 

“Love you,” he pants into Blaine’s neck, and Blaine nods like words are beyond him right now, and pulls him closer, rocking rollicking bodies while the waves roll in outside. 

*

The next morning they wake up, shower, make coffee together - everything they’ve been doing every morning since Algeria, except this morning at the island they sit closer together than usual, and their fingers catch and play together while they drink their coffee and run through their lines. Blaine runs a thumb over the ring , and Kurt laces their fingers together.

“What are we telling people?” he asks.

Blaine sets his coffee down and runs a hand through his hair. “What do you want to tell them?’

“Blaine.” Kurt squeezes his fingers. “What do _you_ want?”

Blaine’s smile is soft. “I want to tell them. But - you should know, Kurt. I know you’ve been cool with just ignoring it so far, but once this gets out - people are going to be...interested. It might be hard to ignore.”

Kurt sighs, and studies his coffee cup. “I know. It’s still okay,” he says, to reassure Blaine, who smiles back at him. “I know it’ll be weird, but. I’ve got you. We’ll figure it out.”

“Yeah.” Blaine squeezes his hand again, and then lets go. “Okay. Ready to go?”

“With you?” Kurt smiles over the lip of his coffee cup as he drains it. “Always.”

*

On the way to work, Blaine driving and humming along to the radio, Kurt texts Marley. He starts and erases several drafts, and in the end settles for sending a picture of his own hand, curled around his travel mug.

Marley’s reply is almost immediate. _OH. MY. GOD. KURT._

Kurt smirks at the phone, and just replies _:)_

Blaine turns a corner and glances at the phone in Kurt’s hand. “Doing PR work?”

Kurt slips the phone back into his pocket. “Uh-huh. She’ll take care of the rest.”

When they walk in on set there are nudges and murmurs from the crew, and then an expectant hush falls. Kurt starts to raise an eyebrow at them all - it’s anything but expected, really, it is so fast, but this is a crew that has been with them from the beginning, literally, and they know them. After that, what is there really to say? But before he can get a good look going, Blaine’s arm is around his shoulder and he’s being dipped into a kiss. He grabs at Blaine’s shoulders for balance and laughs into it, while the whoops of the crew rise around them.

When Blaine sets him back on his feet he’s beaming, and squeezes Kurt’s hand tightly. Then Johnny is there, clapping with the rest, and he hugs them both and then turns to shout to everyone. “Alright, last day! Everyone to your stations! Let’s go!”

*

The last scene they’re filming is actually one of the first of the film, the first time Dave and Brian meet to talk after that first night at the G.I. show. The uniforms they’re wearing are almost new, their shoes polished and shined, and Pat is humming happily about how, _finally_ , she doesn’t have to make them dirty at all.

It’s a strange kind of uncreation, stepping back in time in Dave’s shoes, feeling his experiences and his growth, the things he wants and the things he comes to need, fall away until he’s just a lost lonely kid who likes to play piano. It’s a relief, too, to end on these light notes, talking almost shyly to each other the morning after the first show, when all they have is possibility and nothing has ended yet. Kurt still cries, though, when they wrap the final scene that day, and he’s not the only one. They’ll be back, for pickups and ADR, but this part of this project, and their lives, is over, and a new one is starting. 

He’s been grateful, more than once, that he is not Dave; he has so much he wants to do in life, so much life ahead of him that he wants to give to art and to Blaine. But it’s not any more life than Dave had, or ever thought he would have, and it’s that thought that makes him pause while he’s folding up his uniform on last time. As real as they try to make this, as real as this feels sometimes, it really is just a movie; months of their life but only a couple of hours on film that people can watch and rewatch as much as they want. In the end it’s Dave and Brian who can rewind, and Kurt and Blaine who have to move forward and face the future, whatever it brings.

He packs up his half of the trailer slowly - Blaine is out on the lot still, making his rounds and last goodbyes, and Kurt is glad for the few minutes just to himself. He puts picture frames and spare socks in a cardboard box and checks the drawers one last time, just in case. When he can finally bring himself to undress he does so slowly, piece by piece, jacket and blouse and undershirt, boots and trousers, and puts Kurt Hummel back on, jeans and shirt and scarf. He twists the ring - Dave’s ring - off, and it’s as he’s slipping it onto the chain of his dogtags that there’s a tap on the door.

“Come in?” 

Blaine puts his head in, hanging onto the door handle and swinging on the door a little. “Hey,” he says, and smiles so sweetly, out of no other pleasure, Kurt thinks, than seeing Kurt there. 

Kurt smiles back, and folds the chain of the dogtags around his hand. “Hey. All done out there?”

“Almost.” Blaine comes in, and lets the door swing shut behind them. “Packing up?”

“Yeah.” Kurt puts the dogtags-and-ring down gently on top of the folded uniform. Blaine comes to stand at his shoulder, and smiles wider when Kurt extracts his own ring from a drawer and slides it on. “Just -” He curls his own fingers into fists, looks down at them folded on top of Dave’s uniform, his tags, _him._ “Just saying goodbye.”

There’s silence, just for a few moments, as they stand and breathe in this space that has meant so much to both of them. Eventually the mood settles, from contemplative to calm, and Blaine smiles wide when Kurt slides a hand over his.

“Ready to go?”

Blaine squeezes his fingers. “I’m always ready to go with you.”

So Kurt balances his box on his hip with one hand and holds Blaine’s with the other’s, and smiles again at Blaine when he holds the door open for them both.

“So,” Blaine asks, swinging their hands a little as they cross the lot to Kurt’s car. “What should we do for dinner?”

_Fin_

Epilogue coming soon!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [A Letter to a G.I. - The Epilogue](https://archiveofourown.org/works/853245) by [wordplay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordplay/pseuds/wordplay)




End file.
